Does anyone still believe that these are just frustrated, misunderstood ’99 percenter’ college students who fear they won’t be able to find employment upon graduation? Or that the protests and demonstrations are being orchestrated by “a cadre of infiltrators hired by Wall Street or some shadowy right wing cabal to discredit the Occupy movement?”

Columnist Peter Schrag, retired edititorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee does. In an op ed Wednesday, he stated that his theory may be a stretch, but then said, “but the real events amount to nearly the same thing.

Many in the media have provided cover to the occupiers since the movement began, and even have attempted to explain-away Occupiers’ bad behavior by saying that they are just a bunch of dumb kids who don’t know what they are doing.  The movement only seemed to sustain because of the media coverage, and media support. And then it grew legs.

If you think they are not a serious movement, I have some swamp land to sell you. The media not only gave cover to the movement, they gave credence to Occupiers’ demands.

“The demonstrators’ anger is understandable, but the more intense it is, the more carefully it has to be directed,” Schrag wrote in Wednesday’s Bee.

Scrag neglects to mention in his column that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, initially encouraged the occupiers, despite their muck, looting and arson. And Quan wasn’t alone. Prominent Democrats all over America stepped forward with support. Only in the new media were there reports of the Occupy movement being funded by labor unions, left wing financier George Soros, and even the Democratic National Committee.

However, after Saturday’s destruction derby inside Oakland City Hall, Quan appeared fed up with the pernicious protesting brats, and their leftist, nihilist friends. ”People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior,” Quan said.

Quan might have included the media in her statement.

The Left’s Stale Playbook

Standard operating procedure for the far left is to use violence when they are losing the intellectual battle – it’s in the playbook, and taught at most public universities. Where the media provided cover for the Occupiers was in how the story was told from the outset; Occupy Wall Street and the subsequent groups made no secret of the fact that they wanted to force businesses to close. They tried to interrupt commerce with the Port of Oakland closure, an event Mayor Jean Quan said she was powerless to stop.

Spreading filth in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, disrupting and disturbing commuters was all part of the plan. Read the Occupy Wall Street website - none of this is a secret.

Media Responsibility

Where this gets weird is when news organizations overstep their responsibility and stop reporting the news, and stories are peppered with opinion. Or only part of the story is told.

Schrag however, is a columnist, and expected to opine, however off base he is.

“Why close the port, one of the city’s few major sources of income and a source of jobs to hundreds of truckers, dockers and countless other blue-collar workers?” Schrag asks. “Why trash little downtown shops and eateries as some did last fall? These surely are not the 1 percent symbolized by Wall Street. Why shut down the airport, as some are now threatening to do? What message is being conveyed there? How is Oakland preferable to Piedmont or Newport Beach where the rich actually live?”

After reading Schrag’s encouragement to the occupy protestors to “go where the rich actually live,” I fully expect to see ‘Occupy Laguna Niguel,’ or ‘Occupy Pacific Heights’ groups created.

It’s All About ME

Many of the middle class whiners doing the protesting are college students upset that they will have to work for less than $100,000 a year when they graduate. They say they shouldn’t have to repay student loans or mortgages. Where does thinking like this come from?

They’ve been told all of their lives how great they are, and how everything they do is wonderful. But who would hire them with such narcissistic, self-absorbed senses of self-worth.

And now the kids are angry.

The students who are protesting should be turning on the teachers and ‘educators’ who passed them every year to the next grade when they couldn’t read and speak English, or do basic math… and the coaches and parent volunteers who handed out first place trophies and blue ribbons to overweight kids with two left feet… and the parents wouldn’t dish out some tough love and discipline, fearing their children wouldn’t like them… In the world of the Occupier, everyone is a winner, except those who work for a living.

The rest of the occupiers, save for a few ideologues in every crowd, are the sloths of American society who believe that instead of working hard to make themselves successful, they are entitled to the things they want, and that it is the responsibility of the government to take care of them and provide for them.

The Occupy movement is playing right into the political left’s class warfare campaign. It’s a tired, hackneyed play, right out of the pages of famous leftists’ writings.

“Occupy, lacking a defined agenda, has become more about itself than about the nation’s paralyzing economic inefficiency and injustice,” Schrag wrote, and the only thing he does get right.

Ultimately, leftists are about selfishness, not selflessness. They are about control, not inclusion. They are about secrecy, not transparency. Leftists are agitators, and have been identified in history as socialists, communists and radicals, not moderates or conservatives.

Conservative by definition, is stable, sober, traditional, orthodox and steady.

Leftists are theorists and perpetual students, not teachers. And as Dennis Miller so aptly said, “They’re squatters who don’t know squat.”

FEB. 2, 2012

feb. 2, 2012

I have a lot of problems with the death penalty. It is just to kill the worst criminals, who have removed themselves from civil society because of their murders and other high crimes. But I don’t trust the current California or U.S. governments to execute the right people. These governments themselves are lawless and laugh at justice.

Even so, it’s silly for anti-capital punishment advocates to argue their case because California’s death-row backlog is too costly. A new initiative being talked up claims that ending the death penalty, and putting death-row inmates back with the regular prison population, would save $200 million a year.

Reports the Fresno Bee, “Now, a growing chorus of death penalty critics who for years focused on moral arguments are making a pocketbook appeal to voters: Their ballot measure to abolish the death penalty focuses on the costs to taxpayers to execute a prisoner. They say they have collected enough signatures to get it on the Nov. 6 ballot.

“‘It is time to stop wasting money,’ said Natasha Minsker, statewide campaign manager for SAFE California, which proposed the measure. SAFE stands for Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement.

“Proponents of the initiative say taxpayers will save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole. Those savings, they say, would be better spent on unsolved rape and murder cases, and for hiring teachers and building roads. There are 722 condemned prisoners on death row — including 42 from the central San Joaquin Valley’.”

Well, if money is the issue, then there’s a simpler way to save it: Start executing those on death row.

California’s death penalty continues to be wound up in court cases. But Texas has been executing criminals for years with the approbation of the same federal courts.

So, why not just adopt Texas’ rules, to the letter, concerning executions? Of if that doesn’t work, ship the murderers to Texas for the executions. As in California, Texas uses lethal injections.

Texas executes about 25 criminals a year. Adjusting for population, the rate would be about 38 per year in California.

For our 722 condemned criminals, it would take about 19 years to send them to their eternal rewards. Start with the youngest members of Death Row to save on the long-term costs of incarceration.

Additions to the death-row population would be offset by those who died of natural causes.

So the savings would add up fast.

Jan. 31, 2012

The California primary’s late date, in June, usually makes it irrelevant. By then, one candidate usually has come to the fore of the Democratic or Republican parties.

Yet California commentators still salivate over actually having something worthy to report. Writes Josh Richman: “For months, nobody figured California Republicans would have a say in picking their party’s 2012 presidential contender — the state’s June 5 primary was just too late to matter.”

“But suddenly, as a volatile and vicious GOP battle barrels toward Tuesday’s Florida primary, uncertainty is setting in as some pundits start to wonder: Could the Golden State’s mother lode of delegates actually make a difference?”

Not gonna happen. It’s over. Romney’s the nominee.

He’ll trounce Gingrich in Florida Tuesday. Willard (Mitt) organized and campaigned better. The Establishment coalesced around him, especially its “conservative” wing, and smashed Newt, who came off as an amateur.

And did Newt really think that messy stuff with his wives wouldn’t catch up with him? His South Carolina victory was a fluke, like the Yankees briefly retreating after Fort Sumter was shelled back in 1861.

Then Mitt will win the Western caucus states because a lot of his fellow Mormons will back him.

Then it’s on to Michigan, where he grew up; hence he has a Michigander accent like mine. His father, George Romney, was a terrible governor there in the 1960s, imposing the state’s first income tax and doubling spending in just six years.

Yet George is remembered fondly, perhaps because Baby Boomers are nostalgic for the days of the Monkees and the Detroit Tigers’ 1968 World Series champions, a team so great they make the 1927 Yankees look like a Little League team. (Where have you gone, Denny McLain? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo. Woo. Woo.)

Then Willard will beat Obama. The economy still is pathetic, the recovery a weak joke. Obama is unpopular. He’s Bush III. Nothing changed. He dashed  the “hope we can believe in.”

I’m not a Romney fan, to say the least (if not less). I’m still knocking back the bourbon over Ron Paul’s demise. Maybe if the Establishment media hadn’t deep-sixed their reporting on Ron. Maybe if… Never mind.

And growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, the politican I most loathed after the ogre LBJ was Mitt’s pa.

President Mitt will do what Republican presidents always do: Consolidate and better manage the socialist advances imposed by Democratic presidents.

It’s the American way.

Jan. 29, 2012

Joel Fox makes some good points about the recent PPIC poll on tax increases. Supposedly the poll showed big margins of folks backing tax increases.

But Fox pointed out that the recent Republican poll numbers in the primary season have changed rapidly within just a few days. There are no active campaigns yet against the taxes to give the poll numbers context. And those who answered the polls liked taxing the rich, but not themselves through a sales tax hike.

The poll also showed that people favored higher taxes on commercial real estate, a “split roll” tax. “The poll asked if the respondents favored or opposed taxing commercial property at market value. The response was 60 percent favorable, 34 percent opposed,” Fox wrote. “But there was no context to the question. In a campaign, consequences of raising taxes on business, like the potential of lost jobs, would be presented to the voters. Surely, voters hearing both sides of an argument would result in some change in the current poll numbers.”

I would add that the context here would that a split roll would be an assault on Proposition 13, which is the “third rail” in California politics. All ads against the tax would focus on that.

A big question is whether rich people, if they’re assaulted by higher tax increases, will fight back. The didn’t when the 1 percent tax on millionaires was imposed by crazed voters back in 2004 to fund mental-health care. But this time, wealthy producers and investors might be fed up with having their money robbed. Money, by the way, that is used to invest in business and jobs creation.

Tax obsessives believe that there are no consequences to increasing taxes. But there are. Money is taken away from investing and used to pay the bloated pensions of government workers.

Maybe Californians have just about had enough of such robbery.

Jan. 25, 2012

Writing on Bloomberg, our colleague Steven Greenhut dissected President Obama’s State of the Union speech. You can read the whole thing there. But here’s the part on California:

——————————————

Steven Greenhut:

He called for a new era of responsibility, yet his aid packages have promoted irresponsibility, as local officials vie for added federal dollars rather than make the hard choices necessary to deal with their debt burdens. The president spoke about underpaid public servants, referring to teachers in particular, but here in California it has been the unsustainable growth in public-sector compensation that most threatens the government programs and infrastructure-building efforts the president says are so necessary to saving our nation.

The president sees a starving public sector unable to adequately meet the needs of the public, a world where heroic teachers must dig deeply into their own pockets to pay for school supplies. But public schools are short on cash not because of a lack of taxpayer support, but because of misdirected priorities driven by a lack of competition, bureaucratic inertia and union demands….

California Schools

In California, education is guaranteed by constitutional amendment to receive at least 40 percent of the general-fund budget. Yet the system is a mess, and some of the highest-funded districts are the ones most plagued by corruption and incompetence. Obama should talk to the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles or a former Democratic state senator who leads an education-reform group about obstacles to reform, which revolve around union intransigence and bureaucracy more than funding.

Here in California the lush pay and benefit packages that many local officials have secured over the past decade are putting cities deeply in the hole, with compensation to police and firefighters often consuming 70 percent to 80 percent of their budgets. One liberal editorial page quipped that public agencies are becoming pension providers that offer public services on the side.

This threat is not just financial. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a Democrat, told Vanity Fair that “Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working.” He continued, “It’s staggering. When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There’s a corruption here. It’s not just a financial corruption. It’s a corruption of the attitude of public service.”

The president railed against inequality, but doesn’t mention the growing retirement chasm between workers in the public and private sectors. He criticized “bad debt and phony financial profits” but wasn’t speaking of the multibillion-dollar government pension debt or the phony rate-of-return projections used by pension funds to mask the growing debt burden.

Jan. 25, 2012

“I am in receipt of the attached press release you sent out today. You identify yourself as ‘WHO: Assistant District Attorney … .’

“As you are aware, you were fired from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) in August 2010, after 18 months with the Office. Among many reasons, you were fired for misusing your title and position in many incidents.

“You were fired for campaigning for office in violation of OCDA policy, exploiting crime victims by referring legal cases involving crime victims to a personal friend and potential political contributor, divulging confidential information obtained through your position at the OCDA to the public, misusing your position as a prosecutor by falsely representing to another department that the OCDA was conducting an investigation, giving inappropriate gifts to court staff showing a lack of understanding on appearance of impropriety, and many other significant reasons.”

Ouch. We’ll see what Spitzer, a close ally of the public sector unions, says in return.

JAN. 23, 2011

To help us better understand, here’s Elmer Fudd translating Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State speech for us:

As weqwiwed by the state constitution, I am wepowting to you this mowning on the condition of ouw state.

Putting it as simpwy as I can, Cawifownia is on the mend. Wast yeaw, we wewe wooking at a stwuctuwaw deficit of ovew $20 biwwion, uh-hah-hah-hah. It was a weaw mess. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! But you wose to the occasion and togethew we shwunk state govewnment, weduced ouw bowwowing costs and twansfewwed key functions to wocaw govewnment, cwosew to the peopwe. De wesuwt is a pwobwem one fouwf as wawge as the one we confwonted wast yeaw.

My goaw then was to bawance budget cuts wif a tempowawy extension of existing taxes—if the votews appwoved. You made the weductions and some vewy difficuwt decisions but the fouw Wepubwican votes needed to put the tax measuwe on the bawwot wewe not thewe. So we awe weft wif unfinished business: cwosing the wemaining gap.

Again, I pwopose cuts and tempowawy taxes. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Neithew is popuwaw but bof must be done. In a wowwd stiww weewing fwom the neaw cowwapse of the financiaw system, it makes no sense to spend mowe than we have. De financiaw downgwading of the United States, as weww as of sevewaw govewnments in Euwope, shouwd be wawning enough. It is said that the woad to heww is paved wif good intentions and digging ouwsewves into a deep financiaw howe—to do good—is a bad idea. In this time of uncewtainty, pwudence and paying down debt is the best powicy.

Fow my pawt, I am detewmined to pwess ahead bof wif substantiaw budget cuts and my tax initiative. De cuts awe not ones I wike but the situation demands them. As fow the initiative, it is faiw. It is tempowawy. It is hawf of what peopwe wewe paying in 2010. And it wiww pwotect ouw schoows and guawantee—in the constitution—funding fow the pubwic safety pwogwams we twansfewwed to wocaw govewnment. Wif enough time, we can and shouwd devise mowe pewmanent tax wefowm but fow now we shouwd finish the job of bwinging spending into bawance wif wevenues. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

Putting ouw fiscaw house in owdew is good stewawdship and hewps us wegain the twust of the peopwe. It awso buiwds confidence in Cawifownia as a pwace to invest and weawize one’s dweams. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Contwawy to those cwitics who fantasize that Cawifownia is a faiwed state, I see unspent potentiaw and incwedibwe oppowtunity. Evewy decade since the 60’s, dystopian jouwnawists wwite stowies on the impending decwine of ouw economy, ouw cuwtuwe and ouw powitics. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Yes, it is faiw to say that Cawifownia is tuwbuwent, wess pwedictabwe and, weww, diffewent. Yet, wook at the facts. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

Aftew the mowtgage bubbwe buwst in 2007, Cawifownia wost a miwwion jobs, much of it dwiven by the ovewwevewaged constwuction industwy and its financiaw pawtnews in the undew-weguwated mowtgage industwy. De wesuwt is a wecovewy faw swowew than aftew the pwevious six nationaw wecessions. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! But now we awe coming back. In 2011, Cawifownia pewsonaw income gwew by awmost $100 biwwion and 230,000 jobs wewe cweated—a wate much highew than the nation as a whowe.

Contwawy to those decwinists, who sing of Texas and bemoan ouw woes, Cawifownia is stiww the wand of dweams—as weww as the Dweam Act. It’s the pwace whewe Appwe, Intew, Hewwett-Packawd, Owacwe, QWAWCOMM, Twittew, Facebook and countwess othew cweative companies aww began, uh-hah-hah-hah. It’s home to mowe Nobew Wauweates and ventuwe capitaw investment than any othew state. In 2010, Cawifownia weceived 48% of U.S. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! ventuwe capitaw investments. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! In the fiwst thwee months of wast yeaw it wose even highew—to 52%. Dat is mowe than fouw times gweatew that the next wecipient, Massachusetts. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! As fow new patents, Cawifownia inventows wewe awawded awmost fouw times as many as inventows fwom the next state, New Yowk.

Cawifownia has pwobwems but wumows of its demise awe gweatwy exaggewated.

De yeaw 2012 pwesents pwenty of oppowtunity and, if we wowk togethew, we can:

Stimuwate jobs

Buiwd wenewabwe enewgy

Weduce powwution and gweenhouse gasses

Waunch the nation’s onwy high-speed waiw system

Weach agweement on a pwan to fix the Dewta

Impwove ouw schoows

Wefowm ouw pensions, and,

Make suwe that pwison weawignment is wowking—to pwotect pubwic safety and weduce wecidivism.

Wast yeaw, I appointed a top advisow wif an impwessive backgwound in the pwivate sectow and chawged him wif finding out what doesn’t wowk fow business in this state and how to fix it. What he heawd consistentwy was that business needed an effective champion to navigate the state’s pwethowa of compwex waws and weguwations which can discouwage investment and job cweation, uh-hah-hah-hah. You enacted a waw to westwuctuwe ouw office of business devewopment and pwace it in the govewnow’s office. Undew the name GO-BIZ, we now have a point of contact at the highest wevew fow businesses wawge and smaww. Mowe than that, the GO-BIZ office is staffed wif peopwe who undewstand what it’s wike to be in business and stand weady to intewvene and give weaw hewp to get businesses open and pwojects off the gwound.

Awweady Cawifownia is weading the nation in cweating jobs in wenewabwe enewgy and the design and constwuction of mowe efficient buiwdings and new technowogies. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Ouw state keeps demanding mowe efficient stwuctuwes, caws, machines and ewectwic devices. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! We do that because we undewstand that fossiw fuews, pawticuwawwy foweign oiw, cweate evew wising costs to ouw economy and to ouw heawth. It is twue that the wenewabwe enewgy sectow is smaww wewative to the ovewaww economy but it pays good wages and wiww onwy gwow biggew as oiw pwices incwease and the effects of cwimate change become mowe obvious and expensive.

I have set a goaw of 20,000 megawatts of wenewabwe enewgy by 2020. You have waid the foundation by adopting the weqwiwement that one thiwd of ouw ewectwicity come fwom wenewabwe souwces by that date. Dis mowning I can teww you we awe on twack to meet that goaw and substantiawwy exceed it. In the wast two yeaws awone, Cawifownia has pewmitted ovew 16,000 megawatts of sowaw, wind and geothewmaw enewgy pwojects. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

In the beginning of the computew industwy, jobs wewe numbewed in the thousands. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Now they awe in the miwwions. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! De same thing wiww happen wif gween jobs. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! And Cawifownia is positioned pewfectwy to weap the economic benefits that wiww inevitabwy fwow.

Cawifownia awso weads the nation in cweaning up the aiw, encouwaging ewectwic vehicwes and weducing powwution and gweenhouse gases. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Ouw vehicwe emissions standawds—which have awways set the pace—now have been adopted by the fedewaw govewnment fow the west of the countwy.

Undew AB 32, Cawifownia has stepped out and cwafted a bowd pwan to deaw wif cwimate change and foweign oiw dependency. De pwan wiww weqwiwe wess cawbon in ouw fuews, mowe efficient technowogies acwoss a bwoad swaf of businesses and a cawefuwwy designed cap and twade system that uses mawket incentives instead of pwescwiptive mandates. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

As a wesuwt, Cawifownia is attwacting biwwions of dowwaws in cwean tech ventuwe capitaw investments. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! In 2011, awmost 40% of such investments wewe made in Cawifownia, making ouw state not onwy the weadew in the nation but in the wowwd.

My commitment is to continue these innovative pwogwams and buiwd on them in the coming yeaw in evewy way that I can, uh-hah-hah-hah.

Just as bowd is ouw pwan to buiwd a high-speed waiw system, connecting the Nowthewn and Southewn pawts of ouw state. Dis is not a new idea. As govewnow the wast time, I signed wegiswation to study the concept. Now thiwty yeaws watew, we awe within weeks of a wevised business pwan that wiww enabwe us to begin initiaw constwuction befowe the yeaw is out.

Pwesident Obama stwongwy suppowts the pwoject and has pwovided the majowity of funds fow this fiwst phase. It is now youw decision to evawuate the pwan and decide what action to take. Without any hesitation, I uwge youw appwovaw.

If you bewieve that Cawifownia wiww continue to gwow, as I do, and that miwwions mowe peopwe wiww be wiving in ouw state, this is a wise investment. Buiwding new wunways and expanding ouw aiwpowts and highways is the onwy awtewnative. Dat is not cheapew and wiww face even mowe powiticaw opposition, uh-hah-hah-hah.

Dose who bewieve that Cawifownia is in decwine wiww natuwawwy shwink back fwom such a stwenuous undewtaking. I undewstand that feewing but I don’t shawe it, because I know this state and the spiwit of the peopwe who choose to wive hewe. Cawifownia is stiww the Gowd Mountain that Chinese immigwants in 1848 came acwoss the Pacific to find. De weawf is diffewent, dewived as it is, not fwom mining the Siewwas but fwom the cweative imagination of those who invent and buiwd and genewate the ideas that dwive ouw economy fowwawd.

Cwitics of the high-speed waiw pwoject abound as they often do when something of this magnitude is pwoposed. Duwing the 1930’s, De Centwaw Vawwey Watew Pwoject was cawwed a “fantastic dweam” that “wiww not wowk.” De Mastew Pwan fow the Intewstate Highway System in 1939 was dewided as “new Deaw jittewbug economics. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! ” In 1966, then Mayow Johnson of Bewkewey cawwed BAWT a “biwwion dowwaw potentiaw fiasco.” Simiwawwy, the Panama Canaw was fow yeaws thought to be impwacticaw and Benjamin Diswaewi himsewf said of the Suez Canaw: “totawwy impossibwe to be cawwied out.” De cwitics wewe wwong then and they’we wwong now.

Anothew huge issue we must tackwe is watew. Wast week, Secwetawy of the Intewiow, Ken Sawazaw – met hewe in Sacwamento wif those in my administwation who awe wowking to compwete the Bay Dewta Consewvation Pwan, uh-hah-hah-hah. Togethew we agweed that by this summew we shouwd have the basic ewements of the pwoject we need to buiwd. Dis is something my fathew wowked on and then I wowked on—decades ago. We know mowe now and awe committed to the duaw goaws of westowing the Dewta ecosystem and ensuwing a wewiabwe watew suppwy.

Dis is an enowmous pwoject. It wiww ensuwe watew fow 25 miwwion Cawifownians and fow miwwions of acwes of fawmwand as weww a hundwed thousand acwes of new habitat fow spawning fish and othew wiwdwife. To get it done wiww weqwiwe time, powiticaw wiww and countwess pewmits fwom state and fedewaw agencies. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! I invite youw cowwabowation and constwuctive engagement.

Next, I want to say something about ouw schoows. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Dey consume mowe tax dowwaws than any othew govewnment activity and wightwy so as they have a pwofound effect on ouw futuwe. Since evewyone goes to schoow, evewyone thinks they know something about education and in a sense they do. But that doesn’t stop expewts and academics and foundation consuwtants fwom offewing theiw ideas — usuawwy wabewed wefowm and weguwawwy changing at ten yeaw intewvaws—on how to get kids weawning mowe and bettew. It is sawutawy and even edifying that so much intewest is shown in the next genewation, uh-hah-hah-hah. Nevewthewess, in a state wif six miwwion students, 300,000 teachews, deep economic divisions and a hundwed diffewent wanguages, some humiwity is cawwed fow.

In that spiwit, I offew these thoughts. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Fiwst, wesponsibiwity must be cweawwy dewineated between the vawious wevews of powew that have a stake in ouw educationaw system. What most needs to be avoided is concentwating mowe and mowe decision-making at the fedewaw ow state wevew. Fow bettew ow wowse, we depend on ewected schoow boawds and the pwincipaws and the teachews they hiwe. To me that means, we shouwd set bwoad goaws and have a good accountabiwity system, weaving the weaw wowk to those cwosest to the students. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Yes, we shouwd demand continuous impwovement in meeting ouw state standawds but we shouwd not impose excessive ow detaiwed mandates. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

My budget pwoposes to wepwace categowicaw pwogwams wif a new weighted student fowmuwa that pwovides a basic wevew of funding wif additionaw money fow disadvantaged students and those stwuggwing to weawn Engwish. Dis wiww give mowe authowity to wocaw schoow distwicts to fashion the kind of pwogwams they see theiw students need. It wiww awso cweate twanspawency, weduce buweaucwacy and simpwify compwex funding stweams. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

Given the cutbacks to education in wecent yeaws, it is impewative that Cawifownia devote mowe tax dowwaws to this most basic of pubwic sewvices. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! If we awe successfuw in passing the tempowawy taxes I have pwoposed and the economy continues to expand, schoows wiww be in a much stwongew position, uh-hah-hah-hah.

No system, howevew, wowks without accountabiwity. In Cawifownia we have detaiwed state standawds and wots of tests. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Unfowtunatewy, the wesuwting data is not pwovided untiw aftew the schoow yeaw is ovew. Even today, the wanking of schoows based on tests taken in Apwiw and May of 2011 is not avaiwabwe. I bewieve it is time to weduce the numbew of tests and get the wesuwts to teachews, pwincipaws and supewintendents in weeks, not months. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Wif timewy data, pwincipaws and supewintendents can bettew mentow and guide teachews as weww as make sound evawuations of theiw pewfowmance. I awso bewieve we need a qwawitative system of assessments, such as a site visitation pwogwam whewe each cwasswoom is visited, obsewved and evawuated. I wiww wowk wif the State Boawd of Education to devewop this pwoposaw.

De house of education is divided by powewfuw fowces and stwong emotions. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! My wowe as govewnow is not to choose sides but to wisten, to engage and to wead. I wiww do that. I embwace bof wefowm and twadition—not compwacency. My hunch is that pwincipaws and teachews know the most, but I’ww take good ideas fwom whewevew they come.

As fow pensions, I have put fowf my 12 point pwoposaw. Examine it. Impwove it. But pwease take up the issue and do something weaw. I am committed to pension wefowm because I bewieve thewe is a weaw pwobwem. Dwee times as many peopwe awe wetiwing as awe entewing the wowkfowce. Dat awithmetic doesn’t add up. In addition, benefits, contwibutions and the age of wetiwement aww have to bawance. I don’t bewieve they do today. So we have to take action, uh-hah-hah-hah. And we shouwd do it this yeaw.

As fow pwison weawignment, we awe just at the beginning. De coopewation of shewiffs, powice chiefs, pwobation officews, distwict attowneys and wocaw officiaws has been wemawkabwe. But we have much to do—to pwotect pubwic safety and weduce wecidivism—and togethew, we’ww get it done.

It is one thing to pass a waw and qwite anothew to impwement it and make it wowk.

As I see it, that’s my job as govewnow and chief executive: make the opewations of govewnment wowk—efficientwy, honestwy and in the peopwes’ intewest. Wif youw hewp, that’s what we’ww do in 2012 and pwove the decwinists wwong once again, uh-hah-hah-hah.

Dank you.

The budget released by the Governor last week projects that despite billions in cuts to programs over the last several years, California will still be $9.2 billion in the hole next fiscal year.  This deficit is forcing $4.2 billion in additional cuts to education and other critical public services, with the possibility of up to about $5 billion more cuts. However, these cuts are also prompting calls for tax increases.

Despite this dire fiscal condition and California’s inability to pay for many programs, notorious politician and former state Senator Don Perata is still pushing a ballot measure that would create a brand new state spending program.  The measure called the California Cancer Research Act would add nearly $1 billion worth of new spending annually, and pay for it with tax hikes on already burdened Californians.

If the initiative is approved by California’s voters, the tax on cigarettes in the state will increase by $1.00 per pack. The additional tax revenue will be used to fund cancer research, smoking reduction programs, and tobacco law enforcement.

This spending includes $16 million on the new bureaucracy to run the program, along with all the salary and pension costs that go with it.

The fiscal estimate provided by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office reports:

“Increase in new cigarette tax revenues of about $855 million annually by 2011- 12, declining slightly annually thereafter, for various health research and tobacco-related programs. Increase of about $45 million annually to existing health, natural resources, and research programs funded by existing tobacco taxes. Increase in state and local sales taxes of about $32 million annually.”

Even worse, the measure allows the vast majority of the revenue – and all the research and facilities money – to be spent outside California. Revenue from the California Cancer Research Act is expected to help groups such as the National Cancer Institute, which has a dwindling budget.

Support for the measure comes from the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association in California, American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, all of which report decreasing revenue, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and Tom Torlakson, the California Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Interestingly, Inside Bay Area reported that Oakland City Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente received a $25,000 consulting fee in August 2009 from “Hope 2010″, a ballot measure committee controlled by the Cancer Act campaign’s chairman, Don Perata. He was tasked with “contacting 10 labor groups for petition signatures and 10 business groups for campaign contributions in the Sacramento and Oakland areas.”

While education, public safety and services for the poorest in the state are being cut, this measure would send Californians’ precious tax dollars to other states.

According to Ballotpedia, 60 percent of the revenue (approximately $468 million annually) would to go research of cancer and tobacco-related disease “for the purpose of grants and loans to support research into cancer prevention.”

The initiative would create a 9-member governing committee charged with administering the fund. The California Cancer Research Act Oversight Committee will be made up of public employees.

Most people support cancer research, but there could not be a worse time for California to be creating a new spending program.  We need to fix the many problems in Sacramento, and not create huge new bureaucracies and spending programs that taxpayers have to support.

Not surprisingly, opposition to the measure comes from Californians Against Out-of-Control Taxes & Spending, funded by Altria Group Inc., the parent company of tobacco manufacturers Philip Morris USA.

The Cancer Research Act is an example of the wasteful and bogus programs voters are tricked into voting for under the guise of health and research. Ballot measurers like this that have helped  put California in the horrific budget predicaments, year after year.

The bottom line: California taxpayers should not be funding private non-profit organizations, which already get tax breaks from the government.

Joel Fox of Fox and Hounds addressed his concerns with the measure last March: “Unfortunately, it is another example of ballot-box budgeting in which revenues are limited for specific purposes with little oversight from outside agencies.”

JAN. 12, 2012

Here is a statement from California Pension Reform regarding Harris’ despicable misuse of power regarding a pension reform initiative:

Dan Pellissier, President of California Pension Reform (CPR), today responded to the Attorney General’s title and summary of CPR’s initiative proposals.

“Californians know our public pension system is broken and voters overwhelmingly support pension reform.   Our measures are a responsible way to rein in out-of-control government pensions that are robbing services like public safety and higher education. We are confident that voters will see through the Attorney General’s biased and misleading ballot statement. A vast majority of Californians, including union members and the Governor, support pension reform and we look forward to providing voters an opportunity to fix our broken pension system.”

While the Attorney General accurately describes parts of the initiatives, she provides other statements that are either provably false or grossly misleading:

1. “Reduces pension benefits for current and future public employees…”

This is an absolutely false statement. The proposals do not change pension benefits for current employees. The proposals simply require current employees to pay more for future benefits and then only if the fund is at risk of not being able to pay the employees the benefits they are due.

2. “… including teachers, nurses, and peace officers, but excluding judges.”

The AG selectively lists three positive poll-tested jobs out of thousands of government employee job classifications when both measures apply to all public employees, except constitutionally-protected judges.

3. “Prohibits public retirement systems from providing death or disability benefits to future employees.”

The AG includes the words “prohibits” and “death or disability benefits” in the same sentence when our measures actually specifically provide for those benefits. To avoid any confusion about death and disability benefits, both initiatives say:

“Sec 12 (d) All government agencies that provide pension or other retirement benefits for their government employees may also separately provide death and disability benefits for the benefit of their government employees, regardless of the date of hire.  The cost of such death and disability benefits is not subject to the cost limitations established in this section.”

 4. “Over the next two or three decades, either increased annual costs or annual savings in state and local government personnel costs, depending on how this measure is interpreted and administered.”

The AG repeats the LAO’s misleading analysis that would require the state to maintain a system that Governor Brown rightly calls a “Ponzi scheme.” The LAO acknowledges that the proposals do not necessarily increase costs and fails to recognize that these proposals would immediately begin to pay down the state’s hundreds of billions of dollars in pension debt. The mounting debt would be paid off by shifting more of the costs to the employees, not the state.

JAN. 10, 2012