Spending Taxpayer Dollars to Push Prop 30 is Illegal
Crossposted on FlashReport Does Governor Brown secretly harbor a death wish for Proposition 30? He claims this massive $50 billion tax hike is his highest priority as he personally stumps the state and editorial boards to urge its passage. And yet, as newspaper headlines have reflected all summer, his actions and other silly deeds of […]
Guess Who Wants to Raise Your Taxes
Back in the days before he joined the dark side of “The Force,” Arnold Schwarzenegger was a compelling advocate for taxpayers. He noted that “from the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they’re taxed. Then they go and get the cup of coffee, they’re taxed….This goes on all day long. […]
Censorship: Another Step on the Road to Despotism?
Editor’s Note: The following commentary by Jon Coupal on the controversy over the blocked telecast of the Senate hearings on Proposition 30 was written before Sen. Steinberg’s apology for stopping the broadcast. Crossposted on FlashReport In June, this column noted the dangerous consequences of one party rule in California. In addition to the fact that […]
Checking the Books
To outsiders, California appears to be a decidedly liberal state. After all, Mitt Romney is unlikely to even contest California and our super high taxes and regulatory burden establish beyond any reasonable doubt that this sure isn’t Texas. It is true that, taken as a whole, our elected leadership is very much left of center, […]
Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Prop. 13
The 2nd District Court of Appeal has agreed with attorneys representing the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 13 lacks merit. Since his retirement, former UCLA Chancellor Charles Young has been busy filing lawsuits to try to overturn a critical taxpayer protection contained in Prop. 13: the two-thirds vote […]
Education: Who Loves Ya Baby?
Support for education consistently polls well in California and that support cuts across party and ideological identification. Sacramento politicians know this and so, naturally, they say they love education too. But voters would be wise to take claims of support for education with a grain of salt. It’s not educating our children that most politicians […]
Court of Appeal Asks Secretary of State to Explain Herself
Editor’s Note: The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association intervened in the case brought against the Secretary of State by Molly Munger over the numbering of the ballot propositions. When Munger lost in Superior court, she stepped aside and HJTA appealed. In a victory for the integrity of the ballot process, the Court of Appeal for the […]
From Bad to Worse
In Sacramento, the appalling consequences of one party rule have become manifest. Last summer, I wrote about one party rule in the Legislature and pointed out the similarities with the early days of Fascist Italy, where the party gained control of the Italian Parliament through intimidation. I concluded, “Today in Sacramento, to impose one political […]
Stunning Shift on High Speed Rail
Nothing epitomizes the abject failure of California governance more than the so-called High Speed Rail Project or, as it has been derisively labeled, High Speed Fail. To recap, in 2008 voters narrowly approved a $10 billion down payment for the construction of a high speed rail network between the Bay Area and Los Angeles that […]
Repaying This State Borrowing Goes Up in Smoke
Sacramento politicians and Japanese censors during WWII share a similar philosophy — they do their best to prevent the public from learning of their leaders’ mistakes. The turning point of WWII in the Pacific was the battle of Midway where the Japanese fleet suffered a catastrophic defeat with the loss of four aircraft carriers. The […]