I received a charming call from a national GOP fundraiser on Saturday asking me to ‘renew‘ my commitment to the National Party. I demurred, making certain that she understood that while I had contributed to the Presidential campaign in the general election, I was dissatisfied with the national party’s efforts across all fronts: Congressional, Senatorial, and the [...]
Hey fellow Conservatives and the GOP, here’s my post election theme song. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. In January. Maybe.
In this political season, I find myself missing a particular voice. A voice that was as unique as any other audibly, and in terms of his happy warrior tone. Dean Barnett would really be enjoying this ride in 2012, and would lend a valuable voice to the current debate. A voice that could help us all [...]
The City of San Bernardino has become the third city in California to file for bankruptcy protection in the past two weeks. Essentially, the city was at a point where they weren’t going to be able to meet their payroll obligations. Stockton filed for bankruptcy protection in June. With a projected $26 million budget deficit, Stockton became the [...]
Sixteen billion dollars. The California projected deficit for 2012-2013. Sixteen billion. The California deficit is just three billion short of the entire budget for the state of Colorado, at nineteen billion. The California deficit is three times larger than the entire budget of the state of New Mexico, at $5.6 billion. But it is not [...]
California has a long history with the ballot initiative process. Most famously, Proposition 13′s passage in 1978 heralded the Tax reform wave that swept the nation in the 1980s. Proposition 13 however, impacted how the state collected revenue, but it did not impact how the state could spend tax dollars. The larger history of the California [...]
In a Sacramento Bee article, California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D Sacramento) notes that the possibility of sending competing tax increase measures before the voters is fraught with peril. Make no mistake, Senator Steinberg wants a tax increase to pass. Because California’s highest earners aren’t paying enough? Steinberg said it “scares the heck [...]
Saw this in the comments at The Bleat today. “We even have an entire political party arguing that telling someone to pay for their own stuff is the same as telling them they can’t have it – the very essence of the teenage mindset.” Keep it simple. Just because I don’t want to pay for [...]
Dan Walters, in the Sacramento Bee points out the obvious about government, and the impacts of it’s intrusion into the lives of it’s citizens: Every new regulatory or taxation policy immediately spawns an array of financial stakeholders who then hire lobbyists and political consultants, distribute money to political policymakers, and seek self-serving applications of government [...]
California Unemployment is going up. Not that it wasn’t already up. It has hovered near 12% for well in excess of a year. And it certainly isn’t going to get better soon. California has a functional $9 billion budget deficit. Meaning that functionally, because of spending mandated via legislation, and the Californian public’s absurd predisposition [...]