Apparently there is a crowd of state employees holding a rally at the State Capitol, unhappy with the impending action by Governor Terminator to axe 20,000 positions and take 200,000 other state employees down to the federal minimum wage (with full repayment of missed income after the budget is passed).

I would like to direct all of these folks here, where you can get lots of ideas on how to streamline and reduce the size of California government, back to a level sustainable by revenues. This will faciliate a speedy end to the budget stalement that we have right now.

Remind the politicians in the Capitol that state spending is up like 40% over the past few years, and that it is outrageous that they have outstripped growth in state revenues by that much.

As for me, I’ll call up my State Senator this afternoon. I would think we should eliminate non-vital components of state government, and I will suggest one to him. Perhaps placing before voters an end to the Coastal Commission. That’s a great place to start!

In the meantime, you should ask your union (who takes money out of each of your paychecks)… Read More

Jon asked me to comment on the debate over the "water" bond currently being proposed in the Legislature. Since there really is no water bond being proposed, the debate is a false one. We are already in a water crisis it is true. Democrats have done nothing to alleviate that crisis since sometime in Jerry Brown administration in the 70’s, that is true as well. About 6 bonds have passed since 1996 claiming to be water bonds, and they got Republican votes to get on the ballot because somewhere in the language of the bond, someone wrote the word water. Not one ounce of new water was created by any of those bonds, and not ounce of water will be created by the currently proposed bond. Simply calling a bond a "water" bond does not make it so. California needs new water, California needs it now, and nothing is being done about it, not by the administration, not by the Democrats, and not by those Republicans who insist that we have a "water" bond that doesn’t create an ounce of water.

Let’s start with a critical premise. A water bond that has above ground storage can be a revenue bond (which does not require a vote… Read More

A friend of mine won’t eat shrimp unless she knows its country of origin. This is because she heard that some chicken farms in China place their mesh-bottomed coups over shrimp ponds, feeding the shrimp with chicken droppings. Another friend of mine deadpanned “What’s wrong with that? They’re reducing their Carbon Footprint.”

Since liberals fear Al Gore-style global warming hype more than even terrorism, and they control the legislative and bureaucratic halls of government, the regulatory regime is seriously on the move at both the federal and state level to as much as triple the cost of every product, service or activity.

In fact, the federal EPA and the California Air Resources Board this week issued draft regulations that shed considerable light upon the brave new world where government would exponentially increase the cost of every product or service and control everything from landfills to lawnmowers.

According to Jeremy J. Broggi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the President in April “warned that the Clean Air Act and other existing statutes were the wrong way to address climate change, as… Read More

I’m on vacation, but this one jumped out at me….

Copley Press explores sale… Read More

Readers know I am not a big fan of most campaign finance laws, but the decision of Federal prosecutors to insist on a felony charge for alleged money-laundering by Los Angeles trial lawyer and Democrat activist Pierce O’Donnell is the right thing to do.

The Times reports today that O’Donnell faces money-laundering charges for reimbursing people for making contributions to John Edwards 2004 Presidential campaign. In my personal view, that in itself does not support a felony case against a first-timer, but there are least three other factors that I believe justify the federal grand jury indictment and a felony case against O’Donnell if he is found guilty:

1. This is not O’Donnell’s first brush with money-laundering charges. As the Times article indicates, O’Donnell took a misdemeanor plea for money-laundering in connection with former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn’s first successful race for Mayor in 2001. That was a protracted procedure that started almost three years before the money-laundering activities alleged on behalf of Edwards. That is a "first… Read More

The Newport Beach City Council voted 5-0-2 last night to rescind their campaign ordinance that makes failure to register a campaign mailer with the city in the last 14 days of the election a crime. We have called the ordinance a violation of free speech rights. Good for them. The two absentions came from members of the city council running for reelection in November, Councilmembers Curry and Rosansky, who said they did not want to vote on the matter because of thetheir pending election campaigns. The Council will need to take some subsequent actions, but the ordinance appears on its way to oblivion.

… Read More

Looks like the Governor is going to issue an Executive Order on Monday to reduce the pay of 200,000 state employees temporary down to the federal minimum wage. Once a state budget is approved, these folks will be issued back-pay for the difference. It’s all about preserving cash flow says this breaking story at the SacBee website.

This will jack up the anxiety of public employee unions who should think about this — they have very little cache with legislative Republicans since, for the most part, they work to defeat every Republican that they can. So the question is what kind of pressure can these unions bring to bear on legislative Democrats? Perhaps it’s time for the unions to roll up their sleeves and figure out how to give state government a healthy haircut — which will then allow for a budget to pass, and their members can once again get their full pay.… Read More

After reading over the Governor’s draft Executive Order to reduce the salaries of around 200,000 existing state employees to federal minimum wage (see my post below this one – also see the draft order here) — it dawned on me that perhaps the bigger news is the part that says, "take immediate action to terminate the services of the following five catagories of employees and individuals: (1) Retired Annuitants, (2) Permanent Intermittent Employees, (3) Seasonal Employees, (4) Temporary Help Workers, (5) Individuals Providing Services Under Contract…"

According to press accounts, this is nearly 20,000 people who will be terminated.

This is huge. Perhaps it is the "lemonade" of the lemon that is our state budget crisis. We always see the size of state government grow larger and larger. Seldom do we see actual reductions, Unfortunately, when the budget is approved, it is likely that most if not all of those… Read More