Sometimes I feel like Democrats in the state legislature are producing a decades-long episode of Law & Order—er, make that Laws & Disorder. Just take a look at the thousands of bills introduced every year and it appears they were literally ripped from news headlines–just as Law & Order plot lines often are. Democrats’ bills make the strongest argument for a part-time legislature. They have way too much time on their hands and therefore just pick up a newspaper, read about some story and decide there ought to be a law.

The latest and most ridiculous example of this is Assemblywoman Norma Torres’ bill to make sure those who bring a firearm to the airport aren’t just detained and ticketed, but arrested. Her legislation is in direct response to Assemblyman Tim Donnelly’s Ontario Airport incident in which he accidentally brought his pistol to the airport. Granted, in this TSA-dominated day and age, that was not a smart move on Donnelly’s part. But accidents do happen.… Read More

I was on hand back in the early 1990’s when the a schism occurred within the Young Republicans in this state. Rather than suffer the loss of control of the California Young Republicans, then Congressman Bill Thomas, his protégé Kevin McCarthy (who would go on to take Thomas’ seat in Congress over a decade later), and their allies cheated and thusly a larger number of activists fled the CYR’s to start their own organization, the Young Republican Federation of California. And so for fifteen years there were two YR groups in California — the Thomas/McCarthy controlled CYR’s that stayed small and was controlled from the top-down, and the YRFC which continued through the entire “split” to demonstrate themselves as the “real deal” — a bottom-up activist group that made it’s mark through walking precincts, registering voters and electing conservatives to office. From time to time, the feud between the two groups would bubble up to the California Republican Party Conventions.

… Read More

No surprise for my readers, but the Jerry Brown La-La Land budget revenue projections come true only in Disney’s Fantasyland — if there! The Legislative Analyst’s Office says Governor Brown is billions and billions of dollars off — guess which way.

Below is the “hot off the press” article, but consider this comment I added first:

The eagerly awaited Facebook California capital gains tax windfall is largely illusionary. We are talking about folks who find themselves with a ONE-TIME capital gain windfall of many millions. If they get ANY tax advice at all, they will consider relocating out the state to make the sale. Indeed, they only have to live outside CA for over HALF a calendar year to qualify (well, there are other hoops like registration, etc. — but the big one is moving).

If a Facebook computer programmer takes a one-time $10 million capital gain in California, he/she will pay about $1,000,000 extra in state income tax. If Brown’s retroactive tax increase passes, he would pay about $1.2 million. If the union tax increase passes, he would pay over $1.5 million in tax.… Read More

This afternoon is the only scheduled State Senate floor session before the Governor’s nomination of CSU Board of Trustees President Herb Carter reaches it’s one year anniversary, and Carter’s appointment will expire. Before Wednesday the State Senate needs to bring up his confirmation vote which must pass by a two-thirds vote. The Los Angeles Times has a solid write up on it here.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff has made the opposition to Carter’s reconfirmation his first line drawn in the sand, and this vote will be an indicator of his ability to unify his… Read More

It’s a wrap. The 2012 California Republican Party Spring Convention, held on the San Francisco Bay Area peninsula, is over. As is typical of these semi-annual confabs, I give them my all – and they take all I have to give and more. We’ll pen a post-convention write with an overview of the highlights for publication as early as tomorrow morning. That having been said, I wanted to share with you that at the general session of the convention, by an overwhelming voice vote, the delegates to the convention adopted the 2012-2016 CRP Platform. I am very pleased to share that the document that was approved, while far from ideal, is more or less a re-adoption of the conservative platform document that we adopted back in 2008. I could go on at length about what is in the final document, but instead I will attach it here for you to read.

… Read More

It’s tragic how some desperate states experiencing runaway state government spending are raising their income taxes to soak the rich. But for those states such as California, it’s MORE tragic that many other states are now moving to cut or eliminate their state income tax on corporations and/or individuals. This little-reported tax cutting trend rates wider publicity.

Why would states CUT their income tax collections? Could it be that they want our refugee millionaires and businesses, and don’t want to lose theirs? Or maybe they are just stark raving mad (the dismissive liberal explanation).

Here’s the obvious reason — low tax states do better economically than high tax states. Below is the latest quick bottom line comparison:

… Read More

Somebody send some Tums to the Governor’s office, stat. I can only imagine what’s going on in the horseshoe today after legislative Republicans turned out to be the Governor’s unlikely ally in the pension reform fight. In a move that’s not only good policy, but also smart politics, Senate and Assembly Republicans introduced the Governor’s pension plan verbatim – they didn’t change a word, period or comma. They’re asking for no strings attached and only want Democrats to give it an up or down vote.

The Governor’s plan isn’t perfect but it’s a step in the right direction and it contains many of the same ideas that Republicans have… Read More

Today I released a dynamic analysis by the Board of Equalization showing that the Governor’s proposed sales tax increase will cost California jobs.

According to the analysis, a higher sales tax rate will take money out of the pockets of working Californians, destroying more than 23,000 jobs and $267 million in business investment.

These projected job losses are equivalent to every worker in a medium-sized California city like Glendora or West Sacramento losing their jobs.

When considering tax increases, policymakers often rely on static analyses that ignore behavioral changes by consumers and business owners. A dynamic analysis estimates the likely behavioral changes that could result from a higher tax rate.

The BOE analysis projects that nearly all of the proposed sales tax increase would be passed along to consumers. The state would receive $222 million less in revenues than projected by a static analysis, an 8% loss in potential revenue.

Since July of last year, lower tax rates have enabled Californians to keep more of their hard-earned dollars, and our economy is… Read More