Union bossTyrone Freeman has stolen a lot of money from low wage union members. According to the the Los Angeles Times (link) in a Pulitzer-worth piece, reporter Paul Pringle will not be invited to the next SEIU Christmas Party. This SEIU local, 6424 United Long-Term Care Workers, is controlled by its organizer Freeman. It has some 190,000 workers paying each month into his local. Local 6424 sees itself as the "poor helping the poor" union. Like many such unexamined unions, this one became Freeman’s personal bank. … Read More

Union bossTyrone Freeman has stolen a lot of money from low wage union members. According to the the Los Angeles Times (link) in a Pulitzer-worth piece, reporter Paul Pringle will not be invited to the next SEIU Christmas Party. This SEIU local, 6424 United Long-Term Care Workers, is controlled by its organizer Freeman. It has some 190,000 workers paying each month into his local. Local 6424 sees itself as the "poor helping the poor" union. Like many such unexamined unions, this one became Freeman’s personal bank. … Read More

I got off of the phone a little while ago. The termed-out Assemblymember assured me that she is “No! No! No!” in any tax increases, “temporary” or not.… Read More

In our quest to get termed-out legislators on the record against any tax increases, whether so-called temporary or not, we got this statement from Senator Dick Ackerman:

“Temporary or not, I do not support the use of taxes to balance the state’s budget. This includes an exchange of higher taxes today for a promise of lower taxes and fiscal responsibility in the future. This latest proposal misleads California taxpayers and does not deserve support.”

Oh, and I got a shout-out from Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, who agrees completely.… Read More

My family just returned from an amazing two week trip to Italy, where we traveled to Rome, Venice and Florence. It was an amazing trip, the memories of which I will cherish forever.

I wanted to extend my sincere appreciation to the awesome team that we have here at the FlashReport. While I was away, the site continued to provide our daily news roundup, insiteful columns, and great commentaries and blogs from our contributors (I did manage a few blog posts from abroad myself!).

Thanks again to the team!… Read More

For many reasons, a race to the political middle has blurred the once-clear philosophical lines dividing the two major political parties. Today, the Wall Street Journal (subscription and / or registration required) does an exceptional job of erasing the muddled middle and aligning politicians with philosophy. The paper ran columns by Attorney General Brown and Newt Gingrich each outlining what could be done with $10 billion.

Brown showcases myriad government regulations and controls as well as grant programs that can come, he says, to achieve energy efficiency and other goals.

Gingrich, on the other hand, outlines seven separate goals to be set and a corresponding billion dollar (in some cases multi-billion dollar) prize(s) to incentivise private sector progress toward worthwhile goals.

California’s present fiscal reality shows the limits of excessive spending and pursuit of problems arguably addressed elsewhere. While the federal government is… Read More

Assemblywoman Mimi Walters isn’t termed out, but she is leaving the Assembly at year’s end to go to the State Senate, but she send in this statement in response to this morning’s commentary… (Keep ’em coming!)…

“I will not vote for any budget bill or any other bill that raises taxes. The state’s budget deficit was caused by over-spending. Raising taxes and giving the Legislature more money to spend on new and bigger government programs does not solve the problem – it makes it worse. We need to pass a balanced budget using current resources and also pass a strong deficit prevention measure to constitutionally limit the growth in state government spending.”… Read More

No pressure here to raise taxes in this years budget.I amfirm on this point as is our caucus.

We seek a true spending limitation so we don’t keep doing this everytime the state economy and subsequently, tax revenues are down. The economy and most other things [global temperature]run in something called cycles. We cannot always count on high revenue to sustain year over year new spending. The rainy day fund, which should really be called a drought fund is an important tool to help in budget drought years. However, we won’t see many deposits into such a fund as rainy day/high revenueyears are less likely without a spending limitation on budget spending.

As it is, I don’t see howwe will see the type of excess revenue to sweep into the "drought fund" fora while. Not this year, not next, and probably not 3 years out. Which makes the chatter about a rainy day/drought fund as this years bigfix, bogus. It’s not a fix without a spending limit. It’s as simple as that.

If you want to prolonga stale economy, go ahead and raise taxes to… Read More