If you are reading this, then we
have all, once again, survived the year-end holiday season.  As I write, the 112^th Congress is
finding where the bathrooms are located and the rain has finally stopped
drowning California, after going on to set blizzard records back East and
inundating Manhattan in more snow than I (and most people) have ever seen
there.  Everybody has now returned to
their office or workplace or place of business and all are waking up to the
bills piled up late last year, rolling up their sleeves, and plunging back into
the fray.

Later today, the job numbers come
out.  Breaths are being held.  Fall indicators seemed to say that retail did
better than in years prior and that even some jobs may finally be in the
process of re-materializing, though year end employment numbers are always a
bit suspicious due to holiday season temporary hiring, and other exotic
economic factors which would put you right to sleep if I began listing them
here.

So, is it finally over?  Can we come out of our bunkers now and get
back to business as usual? Is the long, national nightmare of what they are now
calling the Great Recession (still not the dreaded D word, for obvious reasons)
finally now in the rear view mirror and can we finally get back to business for
this new, sci-fi sounding year of 2011? 
If you grew up like me as a Boomer, you may remember the 50’s
predictions that, by the year 2000, we would all be commuting in those flying
Jetsons’ cars. 

Calbuzz noted at
the end of a well-deserved thumbs-up self-review of the lively Dr. Hackenflack/Calbuzz dinner inauguration night: "Worried Democrats meanwhile kept an anxious
eye on Brown, lest he keel over and make incumbent Lite Gov Abel Maldonado a
full-term governor before Newsom takes the oath of office."

Lt. Governor-elect Gavin Newsom is hanging onto to his position as mayor of San
Francisco until at least this weekend to "wrap up some business." Apparently,
the key business is to hang on to the mayor’s job long enough so that a more
friendly (to Newsom’s thinking) Board of Supervisors gets sworn in so that the
mayor’s temporary successor is more to Newsom’s liking than he may get from the
sitting Board.

By his action, however, Newsom could be setting up a constitutional crisis
and/or allow for Republican Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado to be a four year
governor if something, God forbid, happens to the new governor in the next
couple of days.

Just one month ago, California Federation of Teachers President Marty Hittleman – the same man who called the Parent Trigger the “lynch mob provision” – confidently predicted to the media that Governor Brown would immediately remove me from the State Board because I had used my position to advocate for radical kids-first change, ominously stating that I would not be serving on the State Board “in a month or so.” It turns out he was right. Unfortunately, in the Governor’s first full day in office, he chose to stand with the state’s most powerful interest group that spent millions to elect him, rather than the parents and children of California.

I am proud to stand with Michelle Rhee, Gloria Romero and other courageous kids-first reformers who lost their jobs because a kids-first agenda is the most radical political agenda in America. The honor is not to serve on the State Board of Education — the honor is to serve the parents and children of California, and that is what I did.

The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility posted two alternative public pension reform plans on our Web site, and we are inviting stakeholders and the public to help solve one of the most critical problems facing California.

Our lawmakers can’t fix California’s public pension crisis without the public’s help, and it’s got to be done right the first time. If it becomes necessary to put a constitutional amendment before voters, it should be drafted with input from stakeholders, experts and voters. CaliforniaPensionReform.com offers a forum to anyone with information or opinions that can contribute to a healthy debate.

Want to get your arms around California state government? Doesn’t seem possible, does it?

Maybe not, but you can get a good start by reviewing the Legislative Analyst’s Office’s latest publication, a 68-page pamphlet called CalFacts that the LAO hopes will "provide the reader with a broad overview of public finance and program trends in the state."

Essentially a list of Frequently Asked Questions, CalFacts does surprisingly good job of laying out and summarizing the specifics of how California government operates. Some of the more useful sections include a list of ballot measures that have affected the budget, and numbers on what services cost and where the money comes from.

Proposition 13
never went away, of course, but with the return of Jerry Brown as governor
comes more conversation about Proposition 13, the property tax cutting measure
that will be forever linked to Brown. The famous ballot prop passed during
Brown’s first term as governor. He opposed it when it was on the ballot but led
the effort to implement the measure when voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 13.

Now Brown wants to change some of the ways the measure was implemented.

Yesterday, Brown told the California State Association of Counties that he
wants to realign government and return program responsibilities and
accountability to local government. The big question for local government is
how those programs will be funded.

Will Brown seek authorization for new taxing authority for local government?
Will he see that money is shipped directly to local governments from the state
with no strings attached? Or will he consider changes to Proposition 13 so that
property tax will play an even larger role in funding local government?

Noted “straight talker,” State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, must be living in another California. In a recent Los Angeles Times editorial (“California Isn’t Broken”), he suggests that criticisms of California’s fiscal and economic problems are overblown. While I agree that the state will repay its bond debt, I strongly disagree that we are helpless victims of the recession. Our 12.4 percent unemployment, unfriendly business climate and runaway state spending must be addressed if we are to pull out of our financial abyss.

It’s time for straight talk and a reality check. Blaming the recent economic downturn for California’s woes ignores many of the deeper underlying problems.

Treasurer Lockyer quickly passes over the fact that California’s unemployment rate is the second highest in the country. Our state lost 1.2 million private sector jobs from October 2007 to October 2010. More than 141,000 people left California during a twelve month period in 2008-09 because they could not find work. Jobs and opportunity continue to disappear because of high taxes, costly regulations and job-killer policies.

The California Film and Television Tax Credit has proven to be a wildly successful case of the state working with businesses to keep jobs (and over $2 billion in direct spending) right here in California. But not all critics are impressed.

Prior to the Film and Television Tax Credit, “runaway production” had cost California over 10,600 jobs in film, TV and commercial production, and more than 25,000 related jobs, according to a report by The Milken Institute, a nonprofit economic think tank.

Unfortunately, taking our allies of commerce for granted is not a new attitude. The flight of film production, like so many other industries, is part of a distinctly Californian trend. To illustrate, forty years ago California was the hub of our nation’s aerospace industry. Thousands of Californians—with varying skill sets and education levels—could count on on well-paying, high quality aerospace jobs. Twenty years later, my friends and I grew up believing that we would have similar job opportunities in the entertainment industry.

In a story that made headlines in every newspaper around the country, and perhaps around the world, Jerry Brown was sworn in to his third term as Governor of California this week. The eyes of our nation and the world are on Governor Brown and California because of our well publicized 12.4 percent unemployment rate and $28 billion budget deficit.

Governor Brown began his speech with the following statement:

“With so many people out of work and so many families losing their homes in foreclosure, it is not surprising that voters tell us they are worried and believe that California is on the wrong track. Yet, in the face of huge budget deficits year after year and the worst credit rating among the 50 states, our two political parties can’t come close to agreeing on the right path forward. They remain in their respective comfort zones, rehearsing and rehashing old political positions.”