Conflict recently arose in the California assembly when Assembly
Member Anthony Portantino accused Speaker John Perez of cutting his office’s
budget for voting against party lines on a recent measure.  Perez maintains that the cuts were made
because Portantino’s office spent in excess of its allotted budget by nearly
$70,000.   Their disagreement is
difficult to evaluate because the Assembly Rules Committee has not released the
relevant data on Assembly Members’ Offices’ spending.  

Realizing this difficulty, the California Common Sense (CACS) research
team has looked into the data that the Rules Committee has made public.  We found two important data sources: the
annual budgets for Assembly Member offices, published by the Rules Committee
for 2009-2010, and information on Assembly Members’ staffers’ annual salaries,
published on the Assembly website and last updated on May 3, 2011.  We compared the information from these
sources to judge how complete an image of Assembly Members Offices’ spending
they provide.

This article was first published in
today’s Los Angeles
Daily News

Despite
alarm raised in many corners over costly new regulations, the California
Legislature is pursuing AB 52 to clamp new regulations on health insurance
premiums.

The
purpose of the bill, according to the author, Assemblyman Mike Feuer, is to
control dramatically rising health care costs by giving state regulators the
authority to deny or moderate proposed insurance premium increases.

Once
again a measure that purportedly is designed to protect consumers ignores the
cost of doing business. Ironically, the increased cost of regulation will find
its way to the consumers either through increased costs or reduced services.

They say that in life, timing is everything. That certainly can be applied to politics and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proved that this week. On the very same day that a referendum was filed to preserve balance in the California State Senate and prevent tax increases, the Mayor asked for a crushing new tax on employers. Now, more than ever, the business community needs to back a public referendum on the Senate lines.

California, like the nation, has been in a seemingly endless series of budget crises. The reflexive answer from the Democrats, and specifically Mayor Villaraigosa, is to raise tax rates. Democrats now want to roll back Prop 13 protection for businesses and attempt to force them to pay higher real estate taxes. Every business will pay for those increases, whether they own land or not, because land owners/landlords will pass on those higher taxes to tenants. Those increases will weaken the California economy further and result in higher unemployment and larger deficits.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech in Sacramento already
has political tongues wagging. Reporters wonder if the mayor reading a
statewide run. Dan Walters asks if he is preparing to challenge Gov. Jerry
Brown from the left. Does this represent some sort of north-south political
divide?

Villaraigosa’s
speech does expose a divide among California Democrats. But the divide isn’t
about ideology or geography. It’s about attitude, and about strategy.

The
attitude divide was clear in the difference between Villaraigosa’s speech and
an interview
Brown gave this week to the LA Times.

The mayor’s attitude was all about action, and the need to
not dither or delay in tackling the state’s problems. "We are at a point in time in California where we can no longer afford to go on patching the leaks and hoping they will hold for another season,"
he said in a speech that included lines like,
"Let’s go for it with gusto."

California has lost a third of its manufacturing sector and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) continues to try to implement the state’s AB 32 carbon reduction program in a cost-effective manner.  The rest of the country has lost a large portion of its manufacturing as well, but at least temporarily given up on mandatory carbon reductions.
 
Cap-and trade is the policy with which CARB intends to produce about 20 percent of the state’s carbon reductions but it is targeted at about 600 facilities during the first three years.  Under the program cap, a facility will either have to pay for more expensive equipment to produce less carbon, pay for an offset, or purchase credits in a market.
 
California industry is famously efficient due to decades of higher than average energy costs, including 50 percent higher electricity rates than the rest of the country.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the
Sacramento Press Club yesterday offering a "grand bargain" of revenue increases
and tax cuts to fix the fiscal condition of the state but the core of the plan
dealt with significant dismantling of Proposition 13.

The 1978 property tax reform measure set a firm property tax
rate, and limited yearly property tax increases while requiring a two-thirds
vote of the legislature to raise taxes and a two-thirds vote of the people for
some local tax increases.

Villaraigosa proposed undoing many parts of the proposition removing
business property from property tax protection, lowering the two-thirds vote to
simple majority votes for legislative tax increases and lowering the two-thirds
vote for local property parcel taxes dedicated to education. Parcel tax
increases would be new taxes on both business and residential property.

He also called for a tax on services that could raise $28
billion.

If airports are California’s
gateways, then hotels, bed and breakfasts, and inns are homes to travelers.
Whether people are visiting a place they’ve been to before, in town for
business or a conference, or exploring an area for the first time, those
friendly faces at the front desk, housekeeping and the concierge table are
ambassadors for a region.

In my roles with
the Corporation for Travel Promotion (CTP) and the California Travel and
Tourism Commission (CTTC), I’ve seen the sizeable return on investment for
hospitality, travel and tourism spending. The economic engine fueled by a state
or region’s travel and tourism budget should not be overlooked. In fact, the
U.S. travel and tourism industry must be treated as the jewel it truly is.

Travel and
tourism are crucial to the success of a state like California. We are the
number one travel destination in the country, but also a state fighting off
enormous financial burdens. Travel and tourism in California annually inject
$95.1 billion in travel spending into the economy, directly supporting 873,000
jobs and generating $6.1 billion in direct state and local tax revenues.

Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.

Offering up what appeared to be a campaign speech, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the Sacramento Press Club today, repeatedly blasting the Tea Party and Republicans, and even went after California’s Proposition 13 with a vengeance.

What was interesting is that Villaraigosa spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the state’s minority party, and the grass roots Tea Party movement.

“I know some love to talk about media bias. The big irony lies in this: If there’s a single bias, it’s the ever-increasing tilt favoring heat and light over actual news reporting. And unfortunately this hothouse ecology seems uniquely adapted to brewing Tea Party members!” Villaraigosa said.

Calling on the media to help wage his fight, Villaraigosa said that the Tea Party is trying to kill 630,000 jobs by opposing the federal gas tax.

For those of us who support legal reform, some
cases are so silly, you can’t help but sit back and admire the chutzpah of
those who file them, and shake your head sadly at the legal system that doesn’t
immediately throw them out as a waste of precious court resources. Such is the
case of Sacramento resident Rodney Harmon, who decided to sue Hilton
Hotels at the end of July alleging that they tried to trick
him into reading USA Today.

Seriously, Mr. Harmon? I
have stayed at a few hotels in my time, and I can honestly say I do not
remember the Hilton trying to trick me into reading the USA Today. In fact, I
clearly remember that when I checked in there is a form I signed which states
that if I do not want the newspaper they are delivering, they will remove the
charge.