By Jon Coupal and Angélica Salceda Gov. Gavin Newsom has proudly proclaimed that “California does democracy like nowhere else in the world.” But as he warned, we cannot take our democracy for granted. The pandemic has changed how we do business: segments of the private world now operate remotely without the need for face-to-face interactions. […]
Everyone knows that the Constitution protects free speech under the First Amendment. But many may not realize that the First Amendment also protects commercial speech, such as advertisements. Even though the level of protection afforded to commercial speech is less than that given to other kinds of speech, especially political speech, businesses still have rights […]
With the state government of California sitting on a budget surplus that exceeds $50 billion, Sacramento politicians can’t bring themselves to return a few dollars to middle-class taxpayers. While the cost of consumer goods and services is rising rapidly, due mostly to feckless government policies, it is the cost of gasoline that truly sticks in […]
During the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has paid billions of dollars in secretive no-bid contracts with little to no transparency. Now Newsom is deploying his same secretive approach to a growing number of other public contracts. All Californians, irrespective of party affiliation, should be deeply concerned. Especially troubling is the Newsom administration’s […]
In George Orwell’s 1984, there is a particularly gripping scene where the protagonist, Winston, is being interrogated by O’Brien, a member of the party leadership. O’Brien shows Winston a photo that proves that three party members who were executed for treason were, in fact, innocent. O’Brien then drops the photo into what is called a […]
The mass shooting in Sacramento last weekend that took six lives occurred one block from the Capitol offices of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The following morning, I speculated on social media that it was probably gang members with criminal records. It didn’t take a Kreskin to make that sort of prediction which, of course, turned […]
As a participant in capital politics for more than 30 years, I’ve observed many abuses of power. Corruption, pettiness, gross narcissism, and dirty tricks have all increased in recent years both in terms of frequency and shock value. The latest incident, and honestly one of the more disturbing I have seen, occurred in the Assembly […]
Property rights are one of the most fundamental constitutional provisions that protect Americans against government abuse. Unfortunately, these rights are regularly under assault by state and local tax collectors who aggressively target homeowners who have fallen behind on their property tax payments. Constant vigilance is necessary to protect property owners against any government encroachments on […]
While few Californians weathered the pandemic unscathed, taxpayers took a particularly heavy hit, getting stuck for the longterm cost of relief payments, bailouts and fraud while losing earnings during the “two weeks to flatten the curve” that turned into two years. If we had known in early 2020 what we now know, it is doubtful […]
A recent column in this space was headlined “Inflation, the cruelest tax.” Well, if inflation is the cruelest tax, then inflation’s impact on gasoline, combined with the nation’s highest tax, can only be characterized as “cruel and unusual punishment.” In addition to inflation and taxes, other government policies related to petroleum are counterproductive. These include […]
