According to Ronald Reagan, the nine most terrifying words in the English language were, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." If anything, they are even more terrifying today.

Everywhere we turn, government is intruding into our lives and homes. Don't want to buy health insurance? Go to jail, or so mandates Speaker Pelosi's comprehensive healthcare "reform" bill.  Read more >>

When the word "Paris" is associated with taxpayer outrage, it is usually due to junketing politicians jetting off to the France at public expense. But it was similarly sounding Perris, California, a Riverside County community of 50,000, which became the center of taxpayer outrage last week when voters rejected an illegal property tax.  Read more >>

The reported instances of waste, fraud and abuse of our taxpayer dollars are so common now, it takes a lot to shock us. And regular readers of this column know that a pet peeve of those of us at HJTA is when government spends taxpayer dollars to either directly engage in political advocacy or to spend money on a bloated public relations budget.  Read more >>

When the Cheshire Cat told Alice, "We're all mad here," he could have been expressing how two of California's most prominent officials view voters.

In a recent San Francisco speech, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a group of educators that the term limits law -- Proposition 140 approved by voters in 1990 -- was "crazy."  Read more >>

When you start to see jack-o'-lanterns around the neighborhood, you know that something scary is about to arrive at your house. That's right, it's property tax season.

Fortunately, as a direct result of Proposition 13, which limits increases in a property's assessed value to two percent annually, most property owners have a good idea what their bill will be even before opening the envelope. Still, every year at this time, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association recommends that taxpayers carefully examine their latest property tax bill. Although not common, assessors do make mistakes.  Read more >>