Inland Empire Progressive

Mac Taylor the influential legislative analyst has guarded optimism about Gov. Jerry Brown's budget. While biased toward the downside, California Democrats in the legislature would do well to heed his advice this time. He sees (and I concur) a lot of volatility due to outside forces (Washington DC and the fiscal cliff) and our tax code. If Dems want revenue, they should go bold on stabilizing our revenue base. I think that would be a smart move politically and might actually achieve some revenue enhancements with little political cost.

For Rep. Gary Miller's vote on the fiscal cliff deal, a muted but sincere applause is necessary. The Senate saved the day by cutting a deal with Obama (with Mr. Biden as lead negotiator). Approximately 80+ House Republicans joined the overwhelmingly majority of House Democrats in voting to avoid the fiscal cliff, and Rep. Gary Miller was among them so it is well deserved. However, Mr. Miller was not happy. He authorized a press release that stated the administration has failed to outline a spending reduction plan and the standard boiler plate of out of control government spending. What he failed to outline to the folks in the 31st Congressional District is that constitutionally, all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives. It seems to Conservatives, only the 2nd Amendment is constitutionally sacrosanct. In addition, he failed to mention that the Conservative solutions to our so called "spending" problem are politically unpopular. Yet, Mr. M...

Source: San Bernardino Unified School District Annual Financial Report This was a very hard decision for me to make. But as I dug through the documents, it became more apprent to me that $230M dollars and the interest service payments required was just too step a price a pay for San Bernardino residents. A $140M+ bond measure was approved by in 2004 and the voters are still servicing that debt. The 2004 bond was used to build schools and remove asbestos. That is the very same thing that Measure N would do in addition to providing additional security measures and equipment upgrades. This is why it was hard for me to vote no on Measure N. SBUSD kids need help: Our Math Skill Proficiency is at 60% 37%, our API is dropping, and more cuts are coming if Prop. 30 doesn't pass. This is trifecta of trouble! However,  I point to the chart above which is pulled from SBUSD financial statements. The total debt owed is $403,803,838 dollars! If...

San Bernardino needs  a super majority (60%+) police force that actually live in the city. The current police force, like 70% or more live outside the city. The number 70% is arbitrary because I can only estimate how many live outside our city and the City Attorney Jim Penman won’t tell me. It could be more or it could be less. But you can see when a police force is made up of a bunch of outsiders because they only care about the money. The police make up 42% of the budget, which is the biggest portion of the budget. Second is the Fire Department with 24%.  The majority of our tax dollars go to folks who live outside our city. With a budget deficit of $4 Million dollars, we need to ask all of our city employees to sacrifice so that our city can balance its budget. It is harder to do this when many of San Bernardino city employees live outside the city. In addition, our allocations to police are growing (because they have the majority of the city council now) while San Ber...

Eric Cantor July Slides Back during the debt debacle, Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor presented his caucus with the slide above outlining the ongoing negotiations between the President and the Speaker of the House.  The slides above show that despite the best efforts of the Dems to come to a compromise, Republican fanatical adherence the anti-tax mantra prevented them from governing and making any kind of deal. The chart below out shows the consequences of the conservative fanatical adherence to cutting spending instead of deal making. Now the negoation leverage lies with the Dems with the Dual trigger of expiring Bush Tax cuts and military spending cuts.

06/27/11 The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its revised estimates for federal government spending and revenues. The top graph represents what would happen if Congress followed the laws it already passed by allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to expire, the AMT to reset, and discontinue "doc fix" to Medicare. The chart shows that taxes will evenutally line up with Total Primary Spending and the deficit would be erased. The bottom graph outlines the alternative fiscal scenario in which the Bush Tax Cuts are extended, modifications to the AMT occur, and "doc fix" is not allow to reset payment to doctors. Federal government revenues would be about 18% GDP while spending would be at around 25% and rising. I know that the Bush Tax cuts cost 3 Trillion Dollars for those making under $250K and 4 Trillion with those above making $250K included. The AMT and "doc fix" are spending I am still researching costs estimates on and will repost wh...