Black Bart Award: A Nominee and a Runner-Up
The admonition of speaking truth to power is especially significant when the speaker is one of the powerful and the object of his lecture are allies and members of his own tribe. That’s why I believe state treasurer Bill Lockyer should be recognized for his efforts to shame the legislature to get its act together. Lockyer is my runner-up for Californian of the Year.
The man displayed great courage in lecturing the legislature over the state’s fiscal insanity and the need to create an efficient government; railing for public pension reform to a majority party which is supported by those who oppose such reform; and excoriating legislators or all stripes for bringing “junk” bills forward, robbing the legislature of time to face important problems in the state. These lessons must be followed if we are to turn California’s fortunes around.
However, Lockyer makes runner-up for my Californian of the Year because while he put a spotlight on some of the shortcomings in Sacramento, actions taken by state senator Abel Maldonado actually moved the pieces around the great Sacramento chessboard. Maldonado’s actions and ambitions made things happen, some say for good, others say for bad, over the course of the year.
Fiorina Outraged that Boxer Votes Democratic
This just in from the Fiorina campaign: Barbara Boxer is a Democrat.
Not only that, she’s an unabashed Democrat, who was “prioritizing her own bitter partisan politics” when she voted over the weekend to support the health-care bill wending its way through the Senate.
You might remember that health care bill. You know, the one backed by Democratic President Barack Obama that every single Democrat in the Senate voted for.
Carly Fiorina, who’s looking to win the June GOP primary and challenge Boxer in November, wrote in an email to supporters Tuesday that “with her 1 a.m. vote, Barbara Boxer proved yet again that her loyalties lie with the special interests, NOT with the people of California she was elected to serve.”
Now it’s mighty courageous – a word that’s not always a compliment in politico-speak – to mount a political assault on a three-term Democratic senator for supporting a Democratic bill backed by a Democratic president in a state that typically votes, well, Democratic.
Sacramento’s Failures Bring No Holiday Cheer
This holiday season, Sacramento policymakers have little reason for good cheer. Deficit spending, high taxes and excessive regulations are the equivalent of a large lump of coal in politicians’ stockings.
The public gets it. Most Californians appropriately blame California’s leaders for our failure to act: the Governor’s approval rating has sunk to 27%, while a record low 17% approve of the Legislature’s work.
Reforms are long overdue. Recent legislative hearings on improving California’s government are a good start-but mere talk isn’t enough. While political leaders talk, Californians continue to lose their jobs due to the decisions made in Sacramento.
If the economy feels worse in California than the rest of the nation, that’s because it is. Fifteen metro areas across the nation have unemployment rates of 15% or higher. Of these, an astounding nine are in California. The national unemployment rate of 10 percent is more than two points lower than California’s rate of 12.3%.
All I Want For Christmas…
‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the county
Not much was stirring, due to lack of a bounty.
Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care
Hoping soon our state will know fiscal repair.
No visions of sugar plums dance in our heads,
But more practical gifts we ask from Santa instead:
1. Jobs
And by that, I mean an inviting business environment that encourages businesses to locate and grow here. Thriving businesses pay taxes that fill the state’s coffers. Thriving businesses hire people, resulting in less demand for expensive unfunded government social programs. Let’s make the whole state an enterprise zone and offer tax credits to businesses hiring the unemployed. Let’s streamline the permit process for getting a manufacturing plant up and running. How about a short-term moratorium on any new law that would add even one cent more to the cost of doing business here?
Momentum Builds for High-Speed Rail
While we at the California High-Speed Rail Authority don’t second-guess the
will of the voters the way Jon Coupal seems to – instead we make it our
mission to carry out the will of the voters – we actually agree with the
position of the taxpayer advocate who doesn’t want a single cent of the
taxpayers’ dollars wasted. We want to ensure that the $9 billion voters
decided to put toward the construction of a high-speed rail system is not
wasted and is used to its fullest effect. And in fact we have a plan to grow
that $9 billion into the $42.6 billion needed to construct the project.
So, in that light, let us run through a number of reasons we think taxpayers
would be pleased at the approach taken by the High-Speed Rail Authority.
First, investment in infrastructure is good for our economy. Without a
doubt, putting money into brick-and-mortar construction creates jobs and
spurs economic stimulus. In the case the of the high-speed train project, a
conservative estimate shows we’d create 600,000 construction related
job-years over the life of the project’s construction and 450,000 permanent
jobs thereafter. The benefits of $43 billion pumped into our economy cannot
be overstated.
My 8 Worst Predictions of 2009
A year as rough as 2009 should end with some tough self-appraisal. So here’s my look at my 8 worst predictions here at Fox & Hounds Daily over the year that passed. In reverse order:
8. I said Lamar Odom might leave the Lakers because of California taxes. I was wrong. What I didn’t account for was the allure of reality TV, and Khloe Kardashian.
7. Writing about the state’s stem cell agency and its board, I suggested that a public agency selling bonds in the private marketplace wasn’t such a bad idea. Given the persistence of the poor economy and the state’s budget problems, I’m no longer so sure about that.
6. Arnold’s future. In this item, actually written in late 2008, asking where Gov. Schwarzenegger might go next, I raised the possibility he could leave before the end of his term to work in the Obama administration. Dead wrong.
Open Primary Won’t Work as Supporters Hope
In June 2010, California voters will see a ballot measure for the “top-two open primary”. It says that for Congress and state office, all voters would see the same primary ballot, and all candidates would appear on the ballot. Then, in November, only the candidates who had placed first and second would be on the ballot.
State Senator Abel Maldonado, the author of the bill (SCA 4 and SB 6) and Governor Arnold Scharzenegger are the biggest backers of the measure. The legislature put it on the ballot in February, after Maldonado said he would only vote for the budget if his election law measure were passed. The measure has already been endorsed by the California Chamber of Commerce and several newspapers. They all say, and seem to believe, that if the measure is passed, there will be fewer hard-core conservatives and hard-core liberals in state elected office, and more moderates.
Oddly enough, the backers never seem to have looked at the experience of the two states that have actually used that system, to see if it’s true that the system would have that effect. Those two states are Louisiana and Washington. Nor have the backers looked at the California experience with the somewhat-similar blanket primary.