Your Roads Suck & Measure S Won’t Fix Them

The City of Fullerton is spending your money to promote a new sales tax to you. They want you to vote yes on Measure S in order to raise the sales tax in Fullerton. Don’t be a sucker.

True, they’re promising roads and infrastructure and all of the goodies that government is supposedly designed to provide. The problem is that they spend exactly ZERO of your local taxes on these things right now.

Zero of your Property Taxes go to the roads and infrastructure.
Zero of your Sales Taxes go to the roads and infrastructure.
It’s the same with all of the fees and permits, licenses and so forth.

Despite taxing people in Fullerton to the tune of over $97 Million dollars, not one dime goes to the most basic of road work. Seems like we could fill a lot of potholes with +/- $97 Million dollars a year.

So how does our little amount of road work happen?

After the City squanders all of the tax money you give them directly, mostly on salaries and benefits, they then rely on OTHER government agencies to tax you further in order to do the terrible job they do on keeping your city nice. Remember SB1? When Newman jacked up the taxes on every gallon of gas you buy? Yeah, that was because your city government doesn’t actually care about your city and they use the State (where your vote barely matters) as bad cop to their incompetent cop.

Here’s a snippet from Fullerton’s budget to outline my point:

Zero Dollars to CIP
Don’t worry, they promise they’ll spend more if you give them more

That “-” denotes exactly zip, zilch, nadda dollars.

The City Council of Fullerton cares so deeply about keeping your city nice that they can’t be bothered to allocate a single dollar out of the $97Million General Fund – a General Fund that comes directly from your property & sales taxes – to basic upkeep.

I cannot stress this point enough.

Oh they’ll promise that they pave “8 miles of road a year” or whatever hogwash they’re peddling during election season, but in reality they can’t be bothered to tell a single union “No” in order to keep the alignment of your car from freaking out.

So where DOES that money go? Here’s a chart that sums it up:

Taxes to Public Safety
What a coincidence that those lines match up so nicely…

That is a chart from our own David Curlee showing Fullerton’s Property & Sales taxes that you pay laid next to the amount the City spends on Police & Fire. Notice how they line up? The Police Department eats every single dollar (and some) brought in to the City through Property Taxes and Fire eats all of your Sales Taxes. They don’t do that directly of course, they have accounting gimmicks and various funds to try and hide this from you but this is basic math minus bureaucratic bullshittery we’re showing you.

That’s right. That’s where ALL of your money goes and a large chunk of that is to pensions for guys who retire at 55 and will outlive all of us.

And along comes Measure S.

Much like Newman’s SB1 lie, Measure S is full of promises that require you to suspend disbelief and history in order to believe. The same city that prioritizes precisely ZERO of those $97 Million in taxes to keeping up our infrastructure NOW wants you to believe that they can be trusted to do the right thing with Millions more of your money if you give it to them.

Don’t do it. Don’t believe them. Don’t trust them. Don’t give them another dime of your money until they learn how to prioritize spending what they already take from all of us every year.

If you give them more money, they will absolutely spend every dollar on whatever strikes their fancy and when your roads still suck in years to come they’ll put their hat back in their hands and start the begging all over again. End this abusive relationship. They don’t steal from you because they love you, they do it because you won’t fight back.

Join the fight. Vote NO on Measure S.

Ready to Bring Back Josh?

Now that the 2018 General Election is about to be certified (Tuesday in Orange County), let’s start annoying ourselves with predictions of 2020.

I have one for you —

Despite being recalled, by a wide margin, Josh Newman is going to be back in the running for State Senate and he’s going to win. Big.

What makes me say this? Let us look at the evidence:

First we have Exhibit A: LinkedIn

NewmanLinkedIn
“In Exile”

Then we have Exhibit B, the cringeworthy website BringBackNewman.com:

BringBackNewman
Bring Back Josh Newman

We could dive into financials and campaign committees but from the above info alone it should be clear that he’s running again in 2020. Now why do I think he’ll beat Ling Ling Chang?

(more…)

Sad Clowns and Whiny Bitches

There isn’t much worse in this world than a sad clown.

I feel for this clown. Something bad happened to him. He’s a clown! He’s supposed to be happy. He’s not. Clearly this is wrong. This is not his natural state.

One could say the same thing about a man. A man who’s not in his natural state is a sad thing to behold. He’s supposed to be something. He’s supposed to exude something.  For some men it’s confidence. For others, it’s strength. For a few men, it’s hope or inspiration. Whatever it is, a man’s natural state is something good.

Whatever it is, be you.

Celebrate.

Unless you’re a whiny little bitch.

(more…)

Crime? How About Some Punishment?

Looking Heavenward for help…

File this one under “Jeezus We’re getting Desperate.” Trotting out a stock photo of an old lady and comparing ripping off “Grandma” with the recall of Josh “Gas Tax” Newman? Man that’s lame.

Opponents of the recall, i.e. the building trades who work on public boondoggle projects like high speed rail, seem to think this sort of nonsense sells. Well, the consultants will burn though a lot of that union cash, but there’s really no way to defend the indefensible: Newman voted for a highly regressive gas tax that will hammer the poor and people on a fixed income while his pals in the trades make bank building stuff like Jerry Brown’s $60 billion bullet train – whether it’s needed or not.

 

The Democrats in the Legislature have climbed all the way up onto their high horses claiming that recall petition signers were lied to and that recalling Newman won’t get rid of the gas tax, an objection that is really just based on a desperate semantic ploy.  The fact is that getting rid of Newman is simply the first step in yanking the chain of the politicians in Sacramento who would rather tax us then curtail their own addiction to wasting the gas tax money we have already been sending them every time we fill up. The end game is a repeal of the tax, and of course, prevention of any more gas or car taxes.

The Democrats have pulled out all of the ethical stops in attempting to derail the recall. They tried to pass midnight legislation changing the recall rules after the recall signatures had been submitted. Then they put pressure on the California Fair Political Practices Commission to re-interpret their standing rules so that Dem politicians can help bail out Newman financially, proving that when it comes to maintaining their super-majority, no trick or hustle is too low to put into action.

(D)s Prioritize Higher Taxes Over Veterans

SQS-Brown Cemtery

Let us talk about priorities. Why has Sharon Quirk-Silva not re-introduced a bill for the Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine?

Sharon Quirk-Silva introduced a bill into the Assembly for the Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine (AB409) which never even got a vote in committee.

The (D) Super-Majority outright ignored it. Her bill was later rolled into SB96. SB96 was a budget “trailer bill” which is basically an empty bill that is passed by the Senate with one line to be “Gutted” and a new bill full of legislation to be “Amended” into it by the Assembly before coming back for a vote before both houses. It’s a procedural trick which violates the spirit of the law and the very premise of good and open government.

To complicate matters because the Cemetery was rolled into SB96 with 95 other provisions, one of which is also an appropriations item, it is unconstitutional not once but twice and once specifically owing to the provision for the Veteran’s Cemetery itself. (more…)

Dissecting Newman’s Recall Response

— As I figured the Friends would enjoy this I have cross-posted this piece from my personal site. —

Newman Recall Petition

Enough signatures have officially been gathered to recall CA State Senator Josh Newman. Much to the chagrin of the CA (D)s about 1/10th of the 930K residents of Senate District 29 have added their signatures to the effort to remove him from office.

Senator Newman had the following to say about it: (more…)

The Arrogance of Power

Just keep changing the rules until you win…

When you can’t win, just keep changing the rules until you do. That’s the mantra of the California Democrat party and bag men in the State legislature.

Let’s take the case of the recall against State Senator Josh Newman, who within his first few months in office caved in to the party bosses and voted to raise $50,000,000,000 in new taxes, the majority of which will be paid by the people who can least afford it – the working poor, old people on fixed incomes, students, etc.

The consequent recall effort proved so popular that 85,000 signatures were submitted in barely two months, and that caused a veritable panic among the Democrat elitists who run Taxifornia. What’s a limousine liberal to do?

Cheat, that’s what.

Exhibit A for the prosecution: Democrats’ use of the budget process to change the state’s recall process that was already well-underway in the case of Newman, making the recall process longer and more onerous – a violation of due process and civil rights if ever there was one.

Exhibit B for the prosecution: Democrats use of political operatives on the California Fair Political Practices Commission to relax the rules regarding campaign contributions to the target of the recall, paving the way for wealthy left-wing donors to prop up Newman.

We are used to the nonsensical rhetoric about the “appropriate” way in which recalls should be used (only when it suits the agenda of those who make such ridiculous arguments), but the use of government power to muzzle the electorate has to be seen as a much more sinister trend. If ever the politicians in Sacramento get away with using their legislative power to get rid of political opponents you can bet it won’t be the last time they do it.

Should the state use eminent domain to take Coyote Hills?

Newman has been handed yet another bill to pass off as his own in his race against the recall – SB714. It allows the state to use eminent domain to take Coyote Hills by force, turning it over to something called the “State Coastal Conservancy” at great expense to California taxpayers. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva has put up a matching bill that provides taxpayer funding for some of the takings.

Fullerton property rights advocates are warning about the loss of local control and lamenting the potential undoing of 40 years of development compromises (sunk costs, perhaps).

On the other hand, preserve purists like the folks at Save Coyote Hills love the bill, which has the potential to take land from a developer and use it to expand the Robert E. Ward Nature Preserve.

Whatever your take, this warning applies – A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have. Handing this issue over to Sacramento bureaucrats may not get you what you want.