Author: Tom Del Beccaro

Jerry Brown’s political past was clouded for many reasons.  Chief among them was his appointment of Rose Bird as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.  She was not reconfirmed to a new term by voters. In essence, she was kicked out of office. She earned that distinction because she literally refused to follow the law.  By appointing the unqualified Goodwin Liu to the Supreme Court, Jerry Brown now has one more Bird of a feather.

Brown believes Liu is qualified to sit on the highest Court in the state because he is “a distinguished legal scholar and teacher. He is a nationally recognized expert on constitutional law and has experience in private practice, government service and in the academic community.”  Notice what’s missing?  He has never been a judge.

Would you put someone in charge of a hospital’s surgery department to operate on you who has never practiced surgery – even for a day?  I wouldn’t and I also wouldn’t appoint someone to the highest Court in the state ahead of others who are far, far more qualified.  Indeed, Liu is not qualified for the highest Court in the state – maybe a County Superior Court – but not the Supreme Court.

California has long been thought to be the land of fruits and nuts. The actions of its state government too often support that characterization. In recent years, government has deprived the breadbasket of America, California’s San Joaquin Valley, of much needed water to save a three-inch bait fish. Not to be out done, an agency is now seeking to displace prime dairy land to accommodate rail tracks for an utterly unneeded high-speed train. Why punish dairy farmers you ask? Because they don’t want to harm a bird sanctuary. In that way, and sundry others, California government deliberately destroys its own economy and literally is for the birds.

Not long ago, a major CEO from California’s tech industry said, “The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create . . . a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn’t want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways.” Of course, Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers was talking about one of California’s leading industries. His conclusion, however, is not limited to California’s tech industry. It certainly applies to California’s #1 industry: agriculture.

As the budget deadline bears down on Jerry Brown, he obviously has no intention of being truthful with Californians. In his latest masking of reality, Brown says: “We have a plan, and it’s a very good plan,” Brown said. “It will put California’s finances on a firm footing for many, many years to come.” In truth, Brown plan includes a 27% increase in spending purportedly financed by $58 billion in new taxes over 5 years. That’s not economic firm footing – it’s more like financial quicksand.

Let’s be clear about the state of the California budget. There is no need for a tax increase and any such tax rate increase will only hurt future budgets. Several weeks ago, Republicans gave Brown a no tax increase budget that preserved education funding. Brown said no.

Why? Two simple reasons. First, he wants more money to pay for his 27% increase in spending. That’s right, all of Brown’s scare tactics and demands for taxes this year have nothing to do with this year’s budget – they have to do with his completely irresponsible desire to increase spending by $24 billion dollars over the next three years alone. Neither a single independent nor Democrat voter I have spoken to about that spending increase believes that is the right thing to do. Instead of making videos, perhaps Jerry Brown should level with California voters about his spending increase.

A good lawyer will tell you that how you frame the question
often determines the response.  Knowing that, trial lawyers often ask a
series of leading questions before they push a witness to the conclusion they
want…and after reading the L.A. Times poll on taxes today, I think they must
have a degree in law.  Fortunately, Californians don’t fall for those
types of questions on election days and that’s why they have turned every
statewide tax increase over the last decade.

To start, the headline screams, "Californians
support tax hikes to help close budget gap."  Really?  Reading
the article, it’s very hard to find the actual number that does — and then it
turns out only to be 52%.  Objective election watchers will tell you that
number is far too low to hold up in a true election.  It would need to be
much higher at this point, and that’s before you take into consideration the essential
nature of this push poll.

Why do I say it’s a push poll? Two reasons: the
sampling and the nature of the questions.

In 62 B.C., Julius Caesar divorced his wife, Pompeia, after rumors circulated that she was romantically linked with Publius Clodius, a notorious philanderer. Caesar himself reportedly did not believe the rumors, but made it clear when demanding the divorce that “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”

Caesar took dramatic steps to ensure the integrity of his office. California’s Redistricting Commission does not appear to hold the same high standards.

The controversy stems from their hiring of Q2 Data and Research, a Berkeley firm chosen to draw “fair and impartial” district lines through a series of thinly veiled steps.

Keep in mind that the Commission nearly hired Q2 on a “no-bid’ contract until they were embarrassed by public criticism for that patently unfair practice. Forced to issue a public bid notice, the notice contained three key components: bidders should (1) disclose prior redistricting experience at the Metropolitan Statistical Area level – with minimum populations of about 1.5 million and up; (2) disclose potential “conflicts” relating to the partisan backgrounds of persons involved with the bidders’ proposals; and (3) disclose financial supporters with partisan backgrounds that might cause disqualification.

It is not often enough in politics that the two major political parties provide voters with a clear contrast. This year, the California Republican Party and Democrats will do just that. Democrat Jerry Brown is set to make his case that Californians should pay more taxes while refusing to cut back on the bureaucracy. California Republicans know that the tax-and-spend policies that caused our current problems will not solve them – and it is time for us to speak out about it.

California Democrats have dominated the California legislature for the better part of two decades. Even with a Republican governor, that one-party dominance has led to a more than doubling of our state government. Most fair-minded observers agree that California would benefit from a more balanced legislature.

The first step in achieving that balance within the Capitol will be for Republicans to provide more balance to the statewide discussions outside the Capitol. For far too long, Democrats have dominated the California airways. The new California Republican Party, in partnership with our Republican leaders and legislators, is set to reverse that dominance and go toe-to-toe with Democrats all over the state.

California is facing nearly The Toughest of Times.
We face historically high unemployment, perennial budget crises and
more.  Don’t think it could get any worse?  Think again.  If Jerry
Brown is elected, in one short stroke, he could deal a potentially
crippling blow to the California economy before it gets a chance to get
back on its feet.

Even for a
committed political observer, volunteer and commentator such as myself,
it seems implausible – but true – that the stakes for elections grow
with each successive election.  For
California, the 2010 gubernatorial election unquestionably could be the
most important election ever – and not necessarily for a good reason.
If Jerry Brown is elected, he and his fellow Democrats could deliver a
devastating blow to California.

We well know that California’s unemployment rate is above 12%.  We
also know that well over 100,000 people are leaving California on a
yearly basis.  Beyond that, California faces an exodus of businesses –
large and small alike.  So it can be no surprise that state revenues
have declined nearly $40 billion over the last three years as a result
of the declining taxpayer base.

Sacramento was witness to a rarified event on May 11th.

According
to at least one reporter, she had never seen a press conference where
each of California’s political parties stood together – literally and
figuratively – and so it was at the "No on Prop 14" press conference.
The Republican Party, the Democrat Party, the Green Party, the Peace
& Freedom Party, the American Independent Party and the Libertarian
Party all came to together in opposition to Prop 14.  Here are the Top
3 facts and the fantasies that came out of the press conference.

Fantasy #1:  It is only the major parties that are opposed to Prop 14 according to Prop 14’s proponents.

By all accounts, future job growth is going to be sluggish at best and we can expect double digit unemployment at least through next year. The Democrats’ response is a $300 billion jobs program. Many Republicans would rather rely on the private sector to fuel the recovery and job growth. So what’s better, Government Force or Market Forces?

The use of the phrase Government Force is based on the nature of government programs. The vast majority of the people would prefer to pay little or no taxes. They are literally forced by government to pay those taxes. As it relates to a jobs bill, the Democrats will tax one set of people or businesses (taxpayers) and/or borrow money (a delayed tax) and then transfer a portion of those collected/borrowed funds to other people or businesses. In that manner, the Democrats believe they have created a job – or in today’s vernacular, saved a job. But have they?

In the process of taxing some and transferring to others, the government force has taken money away from a business/taxpayer in California and perhaps given it to someone in Alabama. That means the business in California cannot hire someone (or save a job) with the money transferred to Alabama – a type of zero sum game. Actually, it is worse than a zero sum game because government always manages to waste money in the transfer and so Alabama is never helped so much as California is hurt.