The MTA Tax
The MTA tax measure currently being championed by the City of Los Angeles is dead on arrival in many parts of Los Angeles County, and will not come close to meeting the two-thirds threshold for voter approval in November.
Placing a flawed sales tax measure on the ballot with no chance of passage is the ultimate waste of taxpayer dollars. My constituents, cities and unincorporated communities in the San Gabriel, San Fernando, Crescenta, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys–which make up 20% of the County’s population–have already begun registering their vocal opposition to the sales tax measure.
Our long-term transportation needs do require significant public investment in mass transit alternatives, as well as highway improvements, public-private partnerships, and other congestion relief measures like traffic signal synchronization, inland intermodal freight transfer facilities, highway-rail grade separations, and regionalization of air traffic to LA/Palmdale and Ontario Airports.
The Perils of Initiative Tax Increases
Rose King is a well-regarded policy consultant and advocate for mental health treatment. She has written a stinging indictment of the "botched implementation" of Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act of 2004, which blames both state bureaucracy and the use of the initiative process itself. King makes some cogent points about the pitfalls of policy making by initiative.
3D Failure — How the GOP Is Losing California
California’s Republican Party is losing ground dramatically across the state. In the Fresno Bee, John Ellis describes how it is even failing in one of its last bastions of power-—the Central Valley. There are three dimensions to the collapse of the party of Ronald Reagan in the Golden State, and all three reflect a collapse of leadership at the highest levels.
First, there is an abject failure to reach out to the youngest voters in the state. With high schools and universities dominated by union teachers and left-wing professors, there is a serious vacuum of clear messages about what the party stands for in the youth world. There is a near-total absence of youth and energy in the party’s outreach plans.