This week in Los Angeles momentum has gathered behind the proposal to provide driver licenses to illegal immigrants. Providing a legal driver’s license to one
Governor Brown, who has proposed a 7% increase in his FY 2012-13 budget, is once again asking voters for more tax increases when the state’s
State legislation providing legal protections for a proposed football stadium in downtown Los Angeles should be opposed unless provisions are made to provide similar protection for critical public and non-profit facilities.
State legislators should put vital projects like hospitals, libraries, schools and transportation projects on equal footing with football stadiums giving them the same protection from legal exposure. The argument that a stadium needs special treatment because it will create jobs and spur local economic growth applies equally to other projects crucial for the public and funded by their tax dollars.
Democrat and Republican governors across the country are working to cut costs and lower taxes, but Governor Brown’s plan to level California’s $26 billion deficit – the result of several years of out of control government spending – is a “realignment” proposal that not only extends the previous administration’s ineffective tax hikes, but also irresponsibly shrugs the state’s financial burden onto the shoulders of cash-strapped county and municipal governments, creating a real threat to California’s economic recovery and public safety.
In April, Brown signed into law AB 109 – the public safety realignment bill – essentially launching a Trojan horse style attack on local governments and ensuring catastrophic consequences for Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system.
Set to take effect October 1st, this would shift responsibility for convicted felons and parolee supervision from the state prison system to county resources, transferring the state’s legal obligation to already overcrowded local jails and stressed law enforcement agencies — without fully paying for the increased burden.
With a ballooning state budget deficit, Governor Brown’s decision to end budget negotiations is delaying California’s economic recovery.
With governors across the nation rightsizing their state governments by reducing spending and taxes, California continues to keep its foot on the accelerator.
By failing to control excessive spending, implement structural reform including 2-year budget, spending caps, pension reform, and civil service reform, along with eliminating and consolidating agencies, departments and the state’s 339 boards and commissions, the Governor continues our state’s multi-billion dollar deficit denying job creation and vital resources for every school district, city and county.
I cast the lone vote against Governor Brown’s proposal to shift state responsibilities to the counties and increase taxes at the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting. Shifting the state’s budget problems to local government and then offering to take them back through contracting is an illusion from a magician’s bag of tricks. Clearly, shifting these programs is not cost-neutral — otherwise why shift them at all? If contracting with the state means it would cost local governments more money out of their own general funds, then we ought to be concerned about what the state is proposing both fiscally and operationally.
There is no constitutional guarantee that the state won’t back out funding from existing programs to fund new programs. This is the same state that wants us to take more of their responsibilities with the promise to pay it back when it already owes the county over a half a billion dollars. The state’s track record is full of empty promises and hollow reform.
With regard to shifting certain prisoners to county jails, at one point, the state was talking about shifting only those offenders sentenced up to two years in prison — but now, it has grown to three years.
To
address the issues raised by the courts, Proposition 8 was placed on
the ballot after Proposition 22 was deemed unconstitutional by the
courts. It is clear that the Judge’s political correctness agenda
prevailed at the expense of the will of the people. Ultimately, it
will be up to the United States Supreme Court to uphold the
constitutionality of Proposition 8.
Thomas Jefferson warned that radical judicial activism would undermine
the will of the people. He said, ‘When the people fear their
government, there is tyranny.’ Today’s ruling was a direct assault to
the over 4.5 million voters in 2000, and the over 7 million who turned
out in 2008 to vote on this vital issue.
The Senate Democrats
realignment plan is off-target.
The state can raise revenues, generate
jobs and growth by eliminating bureaucracy and unnecessary programs —
not increasing taxes or shifting the unfunded burden to the counties.
What’s needed is the ELIMINATION of unfunded mandates, consolidation
or elimination of state departments and agencies along with reducing
the large number of legislative committees, subcommittees and select
committees.
The proposal to
divest and boycott Arizona over the state’s passage of SB 1070, making
illegal federal immigration law a violation of state law is stupid.
As elected officials, we take an oath to uphold the federal and state
constitutions. To boycott a state for enforcing our federal laws is in
direct violation of that oath.
The propaganda by both the media and
others is intentionally misleading because Arizona’s law mirrors
federal law. Rather than debating a boycott, this Board of Supervisors
should hold our federal representatives accountable for their failure
to act on immigration reform but also for their failure to reimburse
costs incurred by local governments.