To cover their posteriors after running up massive budget deficits, the Sacramento politicians have placed Propositions 1A through 1F on the May 19th special Election Ballot.

Propositions 1B through 1F are of little consequence to taxpayers and are little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Proposition 1B is the $8 billion extortion payment to the teachers union, most others simply shift money from one state account to another, while Prop. 1C mortgages future state lottery revenues.  Read more >>

In normal times, political institutions generally reflect the members they serve. In theory, a legislative body reflects the combined wisdom and experience of its elected representatives. And those representatives, again in theory, reflect the views of the citizens who elected them. The same can be said of virtually any organization, whether a labor union or a political party.

But every now and then, those in the leadership positions of political institutions, for whatever reason, become disconnected with the very people they purport to represent.  Read more >>

When you buy a pair of shoes, you assume that the price you pay includes the store's cost for the footwear and a profit margin on top of that. However, when you pay your water bill to a government agency, you do not expect a profit margin to be built into the price. But if you live in Los Angeles, that would be wrong.

The City of Los Angeles has a long-standing practice of skimming money off the top of the customers' water bills.  Read more >>

Speaking before a meeting of over a thousand members of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in 1992, former President Ronald Reagan told the audience, "We tax reformers bear our scars proudly." The recipient of the Howard Jarvis Lifetime Tax Fighter award was referring to his own effort to control spending, Proposition 1, which was rejected by voters in 1973.  Read more >>

All right, Sherman, let's set the Wayback Machine for February 16, 2004. Listen, we can hear Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, "By voting yes on Proposition 58, you are basically taking the credit cards, cutting them up and throwing them away so that the politicians over there (at the Capitol), those big spenders will never ever get the state into this kind of trouble again."  Read more >>