California is trying a novel experiment to increase taxes where the most productive citizens will want to move out because there is no incentive to achieve success. We as Californians already have the highest taxes in the nation and to depress the consumer driven economy with more taxes our legislators will experience Groundhog Day all over again with more budget problems.

We need to promote a business climate that will create more jobs. If we make sales taxes too high people will buy stuff in different counties or even Nevada and Oregon to save money on big ticket items. We want Californians to buy goods in their localities and we need to provide the incentive for people to consume.

We want people to consume. We want people to help drive the state economy. We should provide a tax credit for people who spend money in their communities. If you spend 500.00 in sales tax in a calendar year in your county, you should be given back 10 percent. 

California has a use tax issue where due to our taxes being so high people naturally do want to save money. However when we shop outside our communities, our cities and public agencies suffer due to the lack of funding. This is my solution to help promote more funding to our local governments and to support our local businesses.

I hope to continue more conversations on taxation and the California state budget in future postings.

Meg Whitman is making it official that she is running for the Republican Party nomination for governor of California by having woman oriented web portal bettyconfidential.com announcing her campaign announcement to the Internet.

Although Meg was one of the first few executives that helped lead Ebay to prominence which helped lead towards her fortune and fame across the nation. Meg is new to the political scene so she will probably need to use her fortune to tour the state and get people to know her. However in a recent California political poll from  Probolsky Research she has 14% support in one of the early polls of California voters with Tom Campbell on top with 15% with the rest in single digits or undecided with a wide majority.

Meg may be a better executive than Carly Fionia, but I would rather wait a few more months to see what type of policy positions Meg and her team have on the state budget, taxation, job creation and social policy before I get an overwhelming urge to hitch my post on a campaign.

The Republican Primary is going to be messy because all the leading candidates are centrists or even liberal in nature. The base is sort of bewildered that a conservative has not been announced for the 2010 campaign, but there is 1 year and 3 months until the primary and the campaign has only began.

Republicans in San Bernardino County should endorse the recall of County Assessor Postmus. Assessor Postmus has sadly been an embarrassment to the Republican Party and San Bernardino County and it should be time for our supervisors to wise up and realize that we need a fresh face to lead the Assessor’s Office.

It has been alleged that our assessor is a drug addict, used government resources for political purposes and helped lead his young assistant Adam Aleman to destroy public evidence and mislead the grand jury during the investigations.

County regulations do provide for the facilities for the supervisors to fire the County Assessor with a 4/5ths vote, but the board is taking the long route towards his dismissal because they want to make sure his termination would be irreversible. Unfortunately our county is planning to spend up to 1 million dollars in order to investigate the possibility of his termination. In this economic climate that is fiscally irresponsible. Just as former Democratic Party Congressman Jefferson froze his bribery money in New Orleans, we need to help change the image of our party and start fresh by making corruption and illegal activity inexcusable.

As long as Bill Postmus stays in office it will be a stain on the reputation of our county. We need a responsible leader to run the county assessor’s office no matter what political party he or she may be. We need to stand up for higher standards as Republicans and support the recall of Bill Postmus as soon as possible. Encourage your friends and family to submit a petition so we can get the process going. We will need around 100,000 signatures and each voice does count.

Thank You

Update: Postmus announced his resignation. Thank You for doing the right thing and saving our taxpayers big money.

In Response to a column in the Flash Report (expanded version soon at Orange Juice Blog)

It is hypocritical that the proponents of Proposition 8 have sued to restrict the rights of individuals to find out who donates to fund their effort. The proponents do not have clean hands on the charge of harassment of donors as they claim that the No on 8 supporters have harassed them.

In October the Executive Committee of Yes on 8 harassed donors of No on 8 on official letterhead right before the election using the same public disclosure records they want to seal. However, the Yes on 8 campaign trying to tell the California public, “Do as I say, not as I did”?

The chairman of Yes on 8, Ron Prentice wants to make it where campaign disclosure laws in our state would be tossed out, but accountability brings forth a healthy democratic process. We should know who was responsible for funding initiatives and political candidates. Mr.Prentice wants to make it where corporations could hide donations to their cause without political backlash helping to provide a financial advantage when the Proposition 8 repeal campaign happens. People on both sides of the issue should have the right to take their business elsewhere if they do not want to support either cause.

Yes on 8 do not want the sunlight of public disclosure to show that they have many things they want hidden, such as the fact that the campaign was formed through a mutual benefit corporation that was suspended for failing to pay their taxes.

I would like to encourage you to be inclusive of all Republicans. Not all Republicans are white, straight and religious. I do not expect you to sign for a resolution to commemorate Harvey Milk’s birthday or score above 50% on Equality California’s score card for this year. However I think we need to first offer up a culture of respect and inclusion first with the county party. California is seriously in trouble with its state budget, but it seems with many members of our base limiting the rights of LGBT Californians is more in priority than making sure our state government does not go under bankruptcy.

As Republicans we should be honest and open with each other and have nothing to hide. The culture our party fostered ruined Assessor Postmus. Our base sadly would eat him alive because he is likely a gay man. We should welcome all Republicans into our party. Our party should not be exclusive, but inclusive. Our party helped to build internal pressure where he had to hide the real person inside.

Many of us are Republicans for many different reasons, I am a Republican because I believe America can be great again like the days of Ronald Reagan. I believe government should not be the exclusive solution to our problems. I believe America should show leadership around the world when they need us. We should work on issues that unite us as Republicans, because stopping the gay menace does not create jobs or feed families yet only divides instead of unites people in our county.

There is further information on the story behind the story in Riverside County’s effort to pander to the cult of $cientology when it was first discussed in the Los Angeles Times on January 10th where the Riverside County Board of Supervisors pandered to the Scientologists to restrict protesters of the cult from being near 50 feet from the property of any private residence the protesters target namely their media production compound in Hemet California. However scientology critics believe that its an attempt by the cult to silence the dissent voices.

Scientology wants to ban also HIV+ protesters from being near their compound which is recently reported in the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center and $cientology also illegally obtained medical information of the Scientology critics and outed their HIV positive status to the Riverside County Sheriffs which is unethical and disturbing. Where if you are a dissident of Scientology the cult’s aim is to destroy your reputation and existance as best as they can by lieing to the sheriff’s department so they could get the dissidents out of their property.

Also Scientology wanted to pay their employees 39 cents an hour instead of the minimum wage and trying to use the argument they were a religious institution to avoid the labor laws.

Anyways the news on how Supervisor Jeff Stone sponsored the ban on protesters of the Scientology media headquarters should inspire fair minded individuals to support an opponent in the next election in 2012. There are many collations annoyed by his presence on the BOS, and maybe they can gather together in unity.

Scientologists do have the right to practice what they want to practice, just like how I could make a religion dedicated to the worship of Ashton Kutcher, the actor and television producer. However they do not have the right to infringe on freedom of speech and they do not have a right to force their followers into slavery by paying them 39 cents a hour or do hard labor.