Free Republic

oday the campaign of conservative State Senator Sam Aanestad will announce their endorsement by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC -- a major and significant endorsement in any race for public office in California, but an especially powerful one in a Republican primary. This imminent endorsement should not come to a surprise to anyone who even remotely follows California politics because there are only two candidates running for the GOP nomination -- conservative Republican Sam Aanestad and liberal Republican Abel Maldonado. There is no need for us to lay out the case for why HJTA is backing Aanestad in this...

Yesterday - less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 - the Court finally issued its decision... all 185 pages of it! By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision here as it appears on the Court's website. While there were no real surprises in the decision, and it looks...

When the Virginia Legislature invited Churchill to address them, he said, “Do you not think you are running some risk (by) inviting me to give you my faithful counsel on this occasion? … I might easily, for instance, blurt out a lot of things, which people know in their hearts are true, but are a bit shy of saying in public, and this might cause a regular commotion and get you all into trouble.” I apologize in advance for serving up some cold and bitter truths with tonight’s dinner, but the events in Sacramento of the last few days simply...

The pictures told the story. They were laughing, back slapping and sharing high fives all around. It could have been Butch Cassidy and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang celebrating a successful train robbery. Only these were malefactors of another sort. They were members of the Legislature expressing their joy immediately after agreeing to make California taxpayers the most overburdened in the nation for at least the next two years. Lawmakers and the governor, who was equally eager to get his hands on the new tax revenue, sought to make the bitter medicine taste better by promising the new taxes were temporary --...

There isn't much point in my expending a lot of time this morning chastising Senate and Assembly Democrats for their plans, this morning, to try to stick Californians with billions of dollars in new taxes, using some scheme where they brazenly attempt to navigate around the State Constitution's requirement for a 2/3 vote to raise taxes. Through sleight of hand and bizarre terminology, Democrats are planning to hike the state's income, gas, and car taxes (and that's not all) -- and do it with a majority vote (Republican legislators have appropriately and boldly said NO to any tax increases to...

In perhaps one of the most brazen political moves in California history, Democrat leadership yesterday unveiled a budget proposal that would shred the California Constitution by raising billions of new taxes without the required two-thirds vote. The tax hikes in the proposal would include a 2.5% surcharge on anyone paying personal income tax, an additional three quarter of one percent sales tax, an oil severance tax and replacement of current taxes on gas with even higher “fees.” We have no idea who is providing legal advice to the Semocrats, but they should have been informed before launching this silly proposal...

In 2004, voters narrowly approved Proposition 63, the Mental Heath Services Act (MHSA), which imposed an additional 1% tax on personal income above $1 million. The funds generated from this “millionaire’s tax” were intended to expand county mental health programs. Taxpayer and business groups opposed the measure for a couple of obvious reasons. First, California is already a high tax, high spending state that didn’t need any more revenue. Second, as we predicted, Prop 63 would exacerbate California’s income tax volatility. Although the final vote for Proposition 63 was tallied more than four years ago, evidence suggests that California’s most...

Republicans have been the only party in Sacramento offering real solutions to our budget crisis to get Californians working again. While Democrats play political games, Republicans continue to show that we are prepared to give Californians the responsible budget solutions they deserve. Senate and Assembly Republicans yesterday proposed an honest and realistic budget plan that will allow California to solve its current budget crisis and invest in the priorities of working families, while also addressing the structural budget problems looming on the horizon. The Republican budget plan includes $22 billion in budget solutions – which is more than either the...

Seems that Governor Schwarzenegger wants to help out his old Hollywood friends with millions of dollars in tax breaks. He makes a case that lower taxes on film and television companies will reverse the trend of runaway production. Currently, California is losing out to at least 40 other states and Canada that are luring away production companies with very attractive tax incentives. Five years ago, 66% of feature film production took place in California. Last year this was reduced to just 31% and the governor wants to help an industry that supports about 250,000 employees. While a non-critical evaluation might...

I’m a lifelong Republican and I want to root for the home team. Problem is, I look out on the field of battle and I can’t tell which team is wearing the white uniform. What do Republicans stand for anymore? The GOP leadership in Congress has virtually destroyed the Republican “brand” and turned it into something of value only to white, well-off conservatives. They have vastly expanded federal government spending and influence. They’ve turned earmarks into an art form. They’ve walked down Main Street throwing cash into the air – in the form of economic stimulus plans – hoping that...

It is no surprise that fiscal conservatives in California are appalled at the breathtaking assault on taxpayers proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Both activists and elected leaders – usually Republicans – have responded with either derision or laughter (with perhaps some expletives mixed in). Given that the Governor could find not a single legislator from either party to carry his last budget, it is safe to assume his latest proposed mix of cuts and revenue enhancements will receive similar treatment at the Capitol. But his proposal to expand the sales tax to include a number of services has another problem: As...

It’s no secret that Republicans across the nation took a beating on Tuesday. As the magnitude of this loss sinks in, some may find it therapeutic to cast blame on the economy, a biased media, being grossly outspent or other external factors. If we do, we do so at our own peril. Tuesday’s outcome was not so much a Democrat victory as it was a Republican defeat. America elected as its next president an inexperienced candidate whose entire campaign did little more than offer rhetorical “hope” and promise undefined “change.” Why did this message resonate? To find the answer we...

in·cred·i·ble –adjective 1. so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed. 2. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible. —Synonyms: farfetched, astonishing, preposterous. "It's an incredible plan," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). The Speaker’s quote about the just-struck agreement on government healthcare with Governor Schwarzenegger unintentionally speaks volumes. Incredible, farfetched, preposterous, hard to believe – call it what you will, the plan will cost far more than advertised and will drive business out of state, reducing state tax revenue and throwing people out of work. Beginning with a low-balled $14 billion price...

It is easy to call yourself a supporter of economic freedom and the rule of law amidst a rapidly rising economy. Now with dark clouds of the recent rise in mortgage foreclosures—and more expected on the horizon—political expediency has eroded the support for free markets in some of its perceived champions. Even self-proclaimed devotees of the late Milton Friedman, President George W. Bush and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, sound more like critics than Friedman supporters. In the wake of a perceived mortgage crisis both have attempted to use the coercive power of government to solve the problem. Both plans center...

Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have declared this the year for health care reform. They’re working hard to put something on the 2008 ballot for voter approval. But as we turn the calendar to December, these elected leaders have yet to reach an agreement on what “reform” should look like. Furthermore, striking a legislative deal would be the easy part. It will be much harder to get voters to ratify any agreement. Various versions of health care reform have been on the California ballot eight times in the past fifteen years, and been rejected every time. Defeated proposals include sweeping...

One twelfth of the United States is poised to adopt a sweeping healthcare reform program, making some dubious assumptions about funding along the way. Many voters remain uncertain of the answer to the key question: "How will the proposed healthcare reforms affect me?" On October 9th, Governor Schwarzenegger released a revised version of the healthcare reform proposal he first offered in January. There are differences between the initial proposal and the new plan, now a 220-page bill called "The Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act." The Act carries a price tag of $14 billion and would affect millions of...

A LETTER FROM SENATOR TOM MCCLINTOCK TO CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY DELEGATES Dear California Republican, Since the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial Kelo v. New London case more than two years ago, over 40 states have passed some form of eminent domain reform. Since California has not passed meaningful reforms, it comes as no surprise that the Institute for Justice, the non-profit organization that litigated the Kelo case, reports that the seizing of private property from unwilling sellers is on the rise in California. According to the Center for Responsible Government, the League of California Cities and other redevelopment interests have spent...

Where I live, instead of bringing mail to my house, the United States Postal Service has set up one of those pedestals with a box lock box with twelve slots where my incoming mail is deposited. So I have to walk about 100 feet from my front door to retrieve my mail. I am sure this is done so that the mail carrier can zip up in their truck and efficiently deal with mail delivery, and zoom off again. Of course, any efficiency in the process for me is offset by the fact that I typically only bother to check...

Arnold's Health Flop After Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his universal health-care plan for California in January, almost everyone was laying down palms in Sacramento. Here was a Republican Governor putting aside political squabbling and "doing big things that Washington has failed to do," as Time magazine put it. What a change seven months later, with the plan on the cusp of collapse. There's a lesson here about health-care "bipartisanship" when it's merely a cover for bad policy. The California legislature is now in the second month of the fiscal year without a budget. Deadlocks are routine because the state requires a...

As the stalemate over the budget continues into its seventh week, taxpayers are troubled over mischaracterizations in the mainstream media about who is responsible. The negative attention is focused on Senate Republicans who are being portrayed as the obstructionists. But viewed fairly, their position is both reasonable and mainstream. They want to see a balanced budget -- rather than saddle future generations with a massive debt load – and they want to ensure that the $42 billion dollars of bond financing for infrastructure just passed by voters last November is actually spent on infrastructure. Moreover, the position which these Senators...