Governor Jerry Brown and Senate Pro Tem Kevin DeLeon today announced a tentative deal to raise California’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this dramatic wage hike won’t hurt millionaires and billionaires. It will hurt lower and middle class Californians, especially those who live in inner cities and rural areas.

Entry-level and low-skilled workers, including young people, will find it more difficult to find jobs, pay for childcare, and eat out. Employers will hire fewer workers and instead turn to automation.

In a state as economically and culturally diverse as California, it’s a shame that our elected officials don’t realize that a one-size-fits-all approach to combating poverty won’t work in our state. Not every city is San Francisco.… Read More

Californians should be aware of a legislative attack on Proposition 13 known as “split roll.”

Prop 13, of course, is the landmark law that protects home and business owners from out-of-control property taxes. Prop 13 has worked well since voters approved it in 1978, but that hasn’t stopped some interest groups and politicians from trying to unravel it.

These folks believe government doesn’t collect enough money and think it’s a good idea to raise taxes on commercial property owners. Hence the name “split roll”; the idea is to treat commercial and residential property differently on tax rolls.

The latest version of this bad idea is embodied in Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, authored by Senators Loni Hancock (D – Oakland) and Holly Mitchell (D – Culver City). Proponents recently called off an effort to qualify a ballot measure this year, but they will try again in the future.

While “split roll” sounds like something pleasant you’d order from a local restaurant, in reality it’s a clever piece of class warfare draped in populism. If split roll were to pass, it would do a great deal of harm to California. Removing Prop 13… Read More

This piece was originally published at the San Diego Union Tribune.

In its 38-year history, Proposition 13 has been under constant assault. The attacks have come from the Legislature, the media and especially the courts. After initially being upheld against a myriad of constitutional challenges, the California Supreme Court then began punching loopholes in the landmark tax reform measure.

Prop 13 was intended, first and foremost, to limit out-of-control property tax increases that were forcing tens of thousands of Californians out of their homes. It did this by imposing a 1 percent cap on the base property tax known as the ad valorem tax and limiting subsequent increases to 2 percent annually. But Howard Jarvis and the voters were well aware how creative local governments could be in dreaming up new kinds of taxes to make up for the tax relief conferred on property owners by Prop 13. For that reason, it also imposed a two-thirds vote requirement on other local taxes. Today, because of court rulings and… Read More

California businesses are increasingly being pushed to participate in economic boycotts of anything to do with Israel. The insidious, growing “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement absurdly claims that Israel practices apartheid.

Followers of the BDS movement paint Israel as vicious and evil, and say it should be discarded from American investments.

The BDS movement even calls for universities to divest from companies associated with Israel, and has perpetuated the growing anti-Semitism movement lurking on California college campuses. Attacking the State of Israel has become a convenient pretext for the expression of anti-Jewish bigotry.

Since taking shape in 2001, when non-governmental organizations and activists prompted by the Palestinian Authority hijacked a United Nations conference on racism, the BDS movement has sought to convince others to attack Israel and its partners through economic, political and cultural means.

Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, introduced… Read More

Hoh boy.

It appears that the California state legislature, the governor and the labor unions have “struck a deal” that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15. No stinkin’ proposition will be required to enact this requirement into law, with a simple (Democrat) legislative majority easily attainable.

The minimum wage (now $10 an hour) will rise in stages, hitting the cherished $15 mark in 2022, and rising to match inflation after that. Very small businesses will have an extra year to comply. http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article68497532.html

Doubtless automation firms are wildly cheering this step towards the Workers’ Paradise so long sought by progressives. State economic development departments around the nation will also be “popping the bubbly,” delighted with California’s relentless efforts to drive businesses out of the state. This $15 minimum wage pretty much ensures we will expand and deepen our permanent underclass of unemployed in California — with heightened… Read More

Everyone supports public safety, but conservatives are a special case. In modern times, it was conservatives, reactingagainst the rebellious sixties and the lawless seventies, who supported law enforcement when it was fashionable for liberals to see them as pawns of a discredited establishment. It was also during the 1960’s and ’70’s that we saw public safety unions acquire far more political power and influence,a rise fueled in part by an entirely justifiable resentment they felt at how theyweretreated by the media and in popular culture.

It’s a different world now. The riots of the sixties and the crime waves of the seventies have been replaced by new threats. Now we have global terrorist groups with access to new technologies that can unleash destruction at a scale unimaginable a generation ago. We have organized crime of unprecedented sophistication; drug cartels, cyber criminals, modern-day slavery networks. The United States, statistically, is a safer place than it’s ever been, but it doesn’t feel that way, and continual reminders at home and abroad reinforce these feelings of insecurity.

Conservatives have traditionally focused on… Read More

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board has spent$10.8 million to prevent Gerawan Farming Workers 2013 votes from being counted – more than $4,100 per vote to deny farmworkers their legal rights to be heard.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board is also being sued for bias and conflicts of interest, and has been found actively and openly working on behalf of the United Farm Workers Labor union, rather than farm workers. And this takes money… a lot of money.

Growing the ALRB

Who says jobs are hard to come by? There have been significant… Read More

Three recent news stories illustrate why, to those not drawing a check from taxpayers, government has become about as popular of a swarm of mosquitos carrying the Zika virus.

Story number one tells how a firm owned by the late Alfred Villalobos will pay the state of California $20 million to settle charges of bribing officials of the California Public Employees Retirement System.

Before his death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Villalobos pled guilty to bribing CalPERS officials to make investments through him, which allowed him to earn about $50 million in commissions. The former CalPERS CEO Fred Buenrostro also pleaded guilty to criminal charges for accepting bribes. For Villalobos, the “fix” was literally in.

To read the entire column click here http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/three-ways-to-fix-government/… Read More