The Associated Press Economic Stress Index just released its Top 20 most and least economically stressed counties in the nation. Guess which state had 12 of the Top 20 most economically stressed? Yup, California.

Imperial and Merced counties top the list, with San Benito, Sutter, Yuba, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin all making the top 10.No California counties appeared on the least economically stressed counties list.

No wonder unemployment is climbing and Californians are leaving for other states. This list is just another shameful reminder of the dismal state of California’s once stellar economy.

My new 60-second radio ad for Board of Equalization is running across BOE District 2 starting today.

In the ad, Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (and fellow Flash Report blogger) says, "Senator Runner is identified as a taxpayer advocate on the ballot because that’s exactly what he is."

"Runner believes that when people are taxed too much, liberty islost,"Jon also says.

"This isn’t someone that’s ‘going along just to get along’ in Sacramento, and that’s why the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers AssociationPolitical Action Committee proudly supportsTaxpayer Advocate George Runner for the Board of Equalization," Jon continues.

The ad for my BOE race runs from today through Election Day (June 8) on conservative radio stations in Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Redding, Chico, Marysville, Merced, Grass Valley and Sonora.

I am proud to be the only candidate endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assocation in the race for Board of Equalization, District 2. Thanks to HJTA for their support (and thank you, Jon, for your help with the… Read More

This is May Revise week. For those of you who don’t spend your time being a budget wonk, the May revise is the part of the budget process where the bureaucrats finally put together the numbers from the revenues from last year’s tax returns (remember when you filed those returns last month, and sent money to that major taxasaurus, yeah, that thing that devours your money and gives back what you would usually expect from an animal that eats constantly). This week is when the bureaucrats and budget staff have to face the realities of the budget, and then try to lie to the legislators to get them to pass a budget out of balance. Of course, when a budget is out of balance, it is never because the government is taking in more money than it is spending. It is always because the tax consumers consume more than than the taxpayers pay.

This is also an election year, and there are a lot of Republicans running for office all over this state that voted for budgets in the past, created this current budget mess, and are now trying to hide their responsibility for the current budget crisis. This crisis was not created in the 2010-11 budget (this year’s… Read More

There’s literally so much going on, it’s nearly impossible to know where to start. Nearly…

Unhand me, or I’ll send out a Press Release… The news resulting in the biggest political buzz over the last several days was an "incident" in the 40th Senate District Democratic primary race between Assemblymember Mary Salas and former Assemblyman Juan Vargas, with a cameo by Congressman Bob Filner.

Filner has been known toget a laugh in recent years whenhe walks on stage donning boxing gloves at the annual Congressional Delegation Luncheonput on by the San Diego Chamber. So, when he attended Friday morning’s press conference with Senate candidate Salasso the two could jointlycastigate their agreed-upon nemesis Vargas, someone should have told him to bring a couple of pairs for the campaign workers.

Apparent attempts by Vargas staffers to noisily gain a ringside seat to the presser resulted in a bit of a scuffle, it seems. A couple of hours later, Salas shot out a press release accusing the Vargas campaign of assault, as well as landing one of her people in the… Read More

I complained here earlier this year about the Dana Point City Council’s vote to implement a new additional hotel tax and taxing district last year during the middle of a recession and at a time of the highest unemployment in recent state history. The city already imposed a 10% "transient occupancy tax" on top of the 8 3/4 % state sales tax. The new tax adds another $3 a night to a hotel bill. Republicans on the council who voted for it claimed the hotels themselves wanted the new tax. Then, after implementation of the new tax district, the biggest alleged supporter of the tax, the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, bankrupted itself. I’m sure the new tax had nothing to do with the bankruptcy, but it was a sad poetic justice to the shaky justification offered by tax-raising Republican Lisa Bartlett and Joel Bishop for their votes.

But the Dana Point tax-raisers actions pale in comparison to what is going on in San Francisco. Tourism in San Francisco has been troubled since the 9/11 attacks. And I don’t see The City’s tourism recovering too quickly given the implementation of the 2006 "health" tax that has… Read More

A big chunk of the California Electorate say they don’t care if a candidate regularly uses marijuana on a recreational basis.

A new poll we conducted found that 40% of Primary Election votes don’t care about marijuana use among candidates and seven percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who smokes pot. That means that over 50% of voterswould beeither indifferent or more supportive of candidate if all they knew was that he or she did the drug.

There are some pretty big differences when you delve into the numbers. Republicans are less likely to support the pot smoker than Democrats, same for women v. men.

Check out the full report here (after you get some munchies of course).… Read More

Traditional Values’ Ben Lopez is on to something good.

Lopez is pushing legislation to enact a Ronald Reagan Day, on Reagan’s birthday February 6 of each year.

AB 2412… Read More

Abel Maldonado (or as John Seiler calls him, "Unable Abel") made his first appearance television appearance as California’s appointed Lt. Governor last night on the Steve Colbert show. It’s worth watching as Colbert basically mocked Maldo and his "open primary" ballot measure — going as far as to give it a tongue-in-cheek endorsement after confirming that nothing in it keeps candidates from spending however much they want on television advertising… It is extremely disappointing to me that while it is clear as day that our problems in Sacramento are that the Democrats are in charge, Maldonado sees the problem as being that HE is not in charge..

Without going on further, here you have it…… Read More