In his Saturday commentary, Jon Fleischman shared the fact that he is struggling to be enthusiastic about Congress when as he writes, “our record is presiding over the growth of government.”I know the conservative base shares these same concerns.Well as the newest member of Congress and the newest fiscal conservative in Congress, I am not happy about the way Congress spends your money either.I won’t attempt to defend the recent growth in government, but I can tell you one thing: we absolutely cannot afford the alternative. I am a member of the Budget Committee, and at this year’s committee mark up of the budget 18 out of 19 Democratic amendments offered would have increased spending.Did you see would-be Speaker Pelosi’s performance on Meet the Press yesterday morning?Did it sound like her party was going to be the one to slow down spending and keep taxes low?If you need a reason to get enthusiastic, just spend a little time thinking about what a Democratic Congress really would look like. … Read More

Circulation of the Los Angeles Times continues to drop! Except for an editorial they ran by me on Feb. 14. See it here. I don’t read the Times like I used too. I stopped paying for the paper after they went after the Boy Scouts.

Below is the a post from LA ObservedThe funny part is the Times spin that they aren’t spending as much on students. They wouldn’t want young people to get hookes on the Times at an early age. That may help circulation! Beside you have to be 21 to drink alcohol.

Circulation drops again * The Los Angeles Times lost another 5.4% of its print readers in the March-to-March comparison, falling to 851,832 daily copies sold. Other local papers are not included in today’s media coverage so far. USA Today, the New York Times and even the Chicago Tribune were up slightly, but most of the country’s big metro papers shed readers—the national circulation erosion is being put at 2.2%. For the Times, at… Read More

It’s 3 days later after the bonds were approved for the November ballot and we still don’t know what the language is that will be in them. But I’m sure further ‘tweaking’ will make them just right, that all the dollars for levees will go to levees and transportation moneywill go for roads. The silver lining of the whole event in the early Friday hours was the element of Pay-As-You-Go that made it through, concerning levees. This will be controlled by the Governor through DWR and I’m confident that this 1/2 Billion dollar appropriation will go well under their oversight, unlike the unknown that will occur when the flood bond dollars will have to be appropriated by this Legislature asprojects move along. I can only imagine the priorities besides actual levee work This Body will spend it on.

We all know there is a bunch of money, unexpected ‘new revenue’ under this current budget cycle,[due to things like holding the line on taxes and regulations, improved workers… Read More

Have about 18 minutes to spare? Click here to see the video of Governor Schwarzenegger, Senate President Pro-Tem Don Parata, Speaker Fabian Nunez, Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, and Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia at a press conference in Oakland touting the achievement of placing the BIPARTISAN BIG BONDS on the November ballot. This stop is the first of four — in the home districts of the four legislative leaders — with stops in Orange County, San Diego and Los Angeles still to go.

[UPDATE: The Governor talked about immigration on Q&A at this event.]

[UPDATE: The Governor will campaign with Perata and Nunez into the fall. What will this mean for the ‘contrast campaign’? Especially for town-ticket… Read More

I’ve been contacted by a couple of big wheels from Team Arnold this morning about this whole issue of the Governor appearing with Jerry Brown today. The message: The Governor today is going around the state touting a public policy victory with members of the legislature. The Governor’s stop in Oakland is less about Jerry Brown (or rather, not about Brown at all, they say) but about it being the home district of State Senate President Don Perata.

Of course, not lost on anyone is the fact that Jerry Brown is not just the Mayor of Oakland, but is also the leading Democratic contender for the office of Attorney General. So the challenge for the Governor is going to be how to "kick off" the Democrats who will cling to his pant legs, anxious to spend time with a Republican who is touting the largest spending plan in California history.

In my humble opinion, inviting enemies of freedom and liberty to fly on his airplane is not the best start. Especially given that Perata and Nunez… Read More

This morning I spoke with Eric Roach, the top-vote getting conservative in last month’s special election in the 50th Congressional District. So let me be the first to share some unfortunate news (unless you are a big-spending Republican).

It is with great sadness that I share with you the news that after much consideration, Eric Roach has decided not to actively campaign for Congress in the regular GOP primary in the 50th Congressional District. Eric would have been an outstanding candidate who I personally think could have cleaned liberal/moderate GOPer Brian Bilbray’s clock in that GOP only primary and gone on to win election to the full two-year term in November. (Bilbray was the top GOP vote-getting in the special election to fulfill the rest of Duke Cunningham’s term, but his margin of victory was so slight that it is a foregone conclusion that he won with the votes of non-Republicans).

I believe that Eric Roach knew he could win that primary, which is what makes it that much more frustrating and unfortunate that he has decided not to run.

In addition to having a private conversation with Roach this morning, I also spoke to Roach’s… Read More

For many years now, I have had the pleasure of working with Karen Hanretty. For years, Hanretty was Communications Director and spokesperson for the California Republican Party. So the two of us share a bond – alumnus of the State GOP (I served as Executive Director of the State GOP during the President’s first election campaign in the 2000 election cycle). After leaving the GOP earlier this year, Karen struck out on her own, forming a consulting practice to bring her public relations expertise to various clients. Karen has really started to make a name for herself because of her willingness to call things as she seems them – something that I admire a lot. Hanretty will be joining Dan Schnur as a State Capitol Correspondent, ensuring that we have the center-right to right spectrum covered!

Please join me in welcoming Karen to the FlashReport team! BIPARTISAN BIG BONDS I know that everyone is expecting me to come out of the chute decrying the BIG BONDS coming down the pike for the November ballot. Fear not, you will hear a lot… Read More

For many years now, I have had the pleasure of working with Karen Hanretty. For years, Hanretty was Communications Director and spokesperson for the California Republican Party. So the two of us share a bond – alumnus of the State GOP (I served as Executive Director of the State GOP during the President’s first election campaign in the 2000 election cycle). After leaving the GOP earlier this year, Karen struck out on her own, forming a consulting practice to bring her public relations expertise to various clients. Karen has really started to make a name for herself because of her willingness to call things as she seems them – something that I admire a lot. Hanretty will be joining Dan Schnur as a State Capitol Correspondent, ensuring that we have the center-right to right spectrum covered!

Please join me in welcoming Karen to the FlashReport team! BIPARTISAN BIG BONDS I know that everyone is expecting me to come out of the chute decrying the BIG BONDS coming down the pike for the November ballot. Fear not, you will hear a lot… Read More