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.  Read more >>

Over the last three days, California has come perilously close to committing economic suicide. What is so frightening is that taxpayers have, for now, avoided by only a single vote the passage of a legislative package imposing the largest tax increase ever presented to any statehouse in America. Ever. The only question is whether the constitutional protection of a two-thirds vote against tax increases -- approved by voters in a landslide in 1978 -- will continue to prevent this tragedy from occurring.  Read more >>

Rumors abound that the Big Five have agreed in concept to a budget solution. As the details of the plan are presented to the legislators who will have to vote on it, taxpayers hope that those who call themselves fiscal conservatives remember a few basic principles.

First, it is far better to have no budget solution at all than to acquiesce to a bad budget solution, i.e., one that adds to California's already crushing tax burden. This is not to advocate for continued gridlock. This is to advocate for the economic survival of the state.  Read more >>

Most taxpayers do not object to good pay for public employees. The problem begins when average hardworking citizens, many of whom are struggling to hang on to their jobs with the state unemployment rate now at 9.3 percent, see state workers, who in theory work for them, doing much better than they are in terms of pay and job security.  Read more >>