Democrats push new taxes on gasoline, health care and tobacco

Taxes, Taxes and More Taxes

• Leftist tax increasing Democrats are on the march and some worthless "Conservative" Republicans are already going into hiding.

(San Jose Mercury News)  -  State lawmakers on Wednesday took the first steps toward raising taxes and fees on motorists and further restricting Californians' tobacco use as the Legislature convened special sessions aimed at solving the state's transportation and health care funding crises.

Members of a Senate committee tackling a huge backlog of roadway maintenance endorsed legislation that would generate $4 billion annually for repairs by increasing the gas tax 12 cents a gallon and boosting annual vehicle registration fees $35 for most cars. Fees for all-electric vehicles would go up $100.

Another panel approved bills to hike the legal smoking age to 21, regulate e-cigarettes and allow counties to place local tobacco taxes on the ballot.

While significant, the party-line votes taken by the committees were merely an opening salvo in a battle between Democrats and Republicans that will play out over the next few weeks about the fairness of fixing California's crumbling roads and improving health care for the poor by imposing new taxes.

"We don't want to dump the cost of our horribly maintained infrastructure on the next generation -- it will be too late to solve the problem if we delay," said Sen. Jim Beall, D-Campbell, whose transportation tax bill passed the committee 9-2, with all the yes votes coming from Democrats. The two no votes came from Republicans; two other Republicans abstained.

Because tax and fee increases require the support of two-thirds of lawmakers in both houses of the Legislature, Democrats seeking to raise taxes will need help from their GOP colleagues, some of whom have indicated they're open to hiking the gas tax for the first time in more than two decades -- as long as the money is restricted to transportation improvements.

Current revenue from California's 42.35-cent gas tax covers only a fraction of the state's annual highway repair needs.

Last week, business organizations such as the California Chamber of Commerce and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group said any deal should seek to raise at least $6 billion annually by raising gas and diesel taxes and increasing vehicle registration and license fees.

Republicans, he said, must be willing to make the leap for new tax revenue, and Democrats must be willing to make the leap for administrative reforms.

Brown will also be instrumental in lining up Republican votes for a new tax on managed health care plans as well as a $2-per-pack cigarette tax, which has been floated but not yet formally introduced by Democrats.

In a health-care financing committee hearing Wednesday afternoon, lawmakers approved a package of bills that aim to reduce the state's health care costs by reducing Californians' use of tobacco products.

The bill that regulates e-cigarettes like regular cigarettes, sponsored by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, had stalled in an Assembly committee whose members had accepted more than $170,000 in campaign contributions from the nation's two largest tobacco companies.

"We should be alarmed and infuriated that one of the fastest-growing segments of e-cigarette users is middle- and high-school students," Leno said. "This is about protecting children and saving lives."

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Ventura, Calif. - The Best Place in America to Live

California has the top ten counties in the United States to live

• Ventura County, Humboldt, Santa Barbara, Mendocino and Del Norte are the top five counties in the United States.  Followed by 6 to 10:  San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Monterey and Orange Counties.
• These studies are always subjective.  For example, beautiful San Luis Obispo County only ranks #21 while super, overpopulated Los Angeles ranks #7.  Still just about any California county rightly ranks higher than most of the rest of the U.S.

By Christopher Ingraham

(Washington Post)  -  Ventura County, Calif., is the absolute most desirable place to live in America.

I know this because in the late 1990s the federal government devised a measure of the best and worst places to live in America, from the standpoint of scenery and climate. The "natural amenities index" is intended as "a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live."

The index combines "six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer." Those qualities, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, include mild, sunny winters, temperate summers, low humidity, topographic variation, and access to a body of water.

These "natural aspects of attractiveness," as the USDA describes them, are intended to be constant and relatively immutable. They're not expected to change much over time, so the USDA hasn't updated its data beyond the initial 1999 scoring. "Natural amenities pertain to the physical rather than the social or economic environment," the USDA writes. Things like plants, animals or the human environment are excluded by definition. "We can measure the basic ingredients, not how these ingredients have been shaped by nature and man." I stumbled on these numbers after reading about a recent study linking natural amenities to religiosity. (U.S. counties with nicer weather and surroundings tend to have less religious residents.)

I've mapped all the counties above according to where they rank on the natural amenities index -- mouse over to check out how desirable (or not) your own county is. You'll see that Sun Belt counties fare pretty well -- especially ones in California and Colorado. In fact, every single one of the 10 highest-ranked counties is located in California. After Ventura County, Humboldt, Santa Barbara, Mendocino and Del Norte counties round out the top five.

Ranking of counties in America based on the quality of life.
High quality is in blue.

By contrast, the Great Lakes region fares poorly, with most of the lowest rankings clustered around the Minnesota/North Dakota border region -- hey there, Fargo! The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) ... Red Lake County, Minn. (claim to fame: "It is the only landlocked county in the United States that is surrounded by just two neighboring counties," according to the county Web site).

Now, if you spend even a few minutes with the map above you can probably find a few things to quibble with in the methodology. If you hate summer, like me, it may seem that there's an inordinate emphasis on warm weather and ample sunshine. How else to explain that Inyo County, Calif. -- home to Death Valley, a place so inhospitable to human life that it literally has death in its name -- ranks so much higher than, say, the bucolic rolling hillsides of New England?

Or that Maricopa County, Ariz. -- home to Phoenix, a place that feels like the inside of a hot car for half the year -- ranks higher than Iowa's stunningly beautiful and criminally underappreciated Loess Hills region? Or that Washington D.C. -- home of sweltering summers, miserable winters, swampy humidity and little natural beauty to speak of -- ranks higher than any place at all?

On the other hand, it turns out that this index correlates well with a lot of human behaviors that researchers and politicians are constantly trying to understand better. For instance, the USDA's original report on the natural amenities index found that these measures "drive rural population change." The USDA found that rural areas with a lot of natural amenities saw the greatest population change between 1970 and 1996.

"The relationship is quite strong," the study found. "Counties with extremely low scores on the scale tended to lose population over the 1970-96 period, while counties with extremely high scores tended to double their populations over the period."

Read More . . . . .

San Francisco ranks #6 in the U.S.

San Diego ranks at #8 in the U.S.

Desalination for a Drought-Plagued California

San Diego County Carlsbad Desalination Project

Does anyone think in Sacramento?

• Democrats love to spend money but not on anything useful.  They are spending billions on a bullet train that few will ride and next to nothing on desalination plants for a thirsty state.
• Call me a "crazy" Blogger, but why can't we build desalination plants in the San Francisco Bay area and run pipes of fresh water right into the California aqueduct system?  You could even pump the fresh water under the sinking San Joaquin Valley to refill the drained aquifer.

By Peter Neill
Director, World Ocean Observatory
Huffington Post

The present drought in California is a highly visible realization of our lack of water awareness and its destructive undermining of the financial structure and social organization we have built in that most progressive state in that most successful global economy. If we fail in California, how can we succeed anywhere else?

At the most reductive level, the traditional water supply system in California has been overwhelmed by climate, industrial agriculture, and water-rich consumption that has been the envy of the world but can survive no longer without revolutionary change. If there is not enough water on the mountaintops to feed the watersheds, rivers, and reservoirs, then where will the requisite water come from?

In 2012, the San Diego County Water Authority signed an agreement to build the largest desalination plant in the United States. The process is not new; it is applied today in some 21,000 desalination plants in over 120 countries, including Italy, Australia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Japan, China, India, United Arab Emirates, Malta, Cape Verde, and Cyprus, producing more than 3.5 billion gallons of potable water per day. Saudi Arabia leads the world, meeting 70% of the daily needs of its population.

The San Diego project is proposed to come on line in 2015 and to provide 7% of the Authority's demand by 2020. The plant is to be built and operated by Poseidon Water, a private investor-owned company that develops water and wastewater infrastructure. The contract is for 30 years, after which the Authority can purchase the plant for $1. The company is also building a 10-mile pipeline to deliver treated water inland to the Authority's aqueduct system where it can augment existing collected or natural supply to serve the needs of the 24 regional member water agencies serving 3.1 million people.

The Carlsbad Desalination Plant occupies 6 acres of the 388 acre ocean-front site of the Encina Power Station that for 50 years has run on oil and natural gas, releasing emissions, and requiring a large dredged lagoon to hold sea water for cooling and to receive plant effluent - a stagnant, stinking reminder of an old technology. The adjacent desalination plant will use a reverse osmosis process with its source water coming from the generating plant cooling supply, treated and pumped under pressure through membranes to remove salt and other microscopic impurities.

Delay After Delay
A desalination plant in Hunting Beach (Orange County) has been talked
about since 1998.  But even with the drought the proposed project
drags on and on and on never to be built.  (OC Register)

In the past, the primary objections to desalination have been salt residue, corrosion, habitat destruction, and cost. The Poseidon plant has undergone comprehensive review by the local, state, and federal agencies, each determined to protect its constituents and the environment. For every two gallons treated, one will be quality drinking water and the other diluted salt content for return to the ocean. The plant will run on Encina electricity to power high-speed pumps at market rates built into the contract. The approvals indicate that there will be no noise, no odor, and no environmental impact. Remarkably, the surrounding land has already been renewed by the prospect of the new plant and has been re-developed by the Authority to transform the embayment into a viable environment for marine life and community activities.

The San Diego region has been a center for the development of international desalination technology. The reverse osmosis process was born from a local company in the 1960s. There are some 35 related companies in the area employing 2,200 people and generating over $200 million in annual revenue. According to the Authority, the Poseidon Project "will have significant economic benefit for the region, including $350 million in spending during construction, 2,400 construction-related jobs, and $50 million in annual spending throughout the region once the desalination plant is operational. For the region, the facility will create jobs, generate tax revenue, improve water quality and enhance water reliability with a new drought-proof supply."

Drought-proof?

These hopeful numbers and language are the typical political arguments that have been used to justify new technology for a long time. The financial estimates may or may not be predicable or accurate, but the ultimate return is inevitable when there is suddenly no more water available, we need the salt water turned fresh, and the cost is priceless.

California Farmers Market Sells Marijuana

Step Right Up

And get your celery, pot, beets and arugula.

(Mother Jones)  -  In the fruit and veggie cornucopia that is California, local farmers markets sell everything from brandywine tomatoes and lemon cucumbers to hedgehog mushrooms and fresh medjool dates. But no farmers market can match the selection of the one in the Mendocino County town of Laytonville, which offers, among other things, an ample supply of heirloom cannabis.

Admittedly, this is not a typical farmers market. It takes place just once a year, at a hippie enclave replete with UFO murals and Ganesh shrines, and only certified medical marijuana patients may enter (though there's a doctor on site to help with that). But it does offer the spectacle of actual farmers selling their own produce and pot side by side.

Emily Hobelmann of the Lost Coast Outpost visited last year and was wowed by the selection:

All told, I saw squash and apples and pears and peppers and world-class cannabis flowers. I saw leeks and tomatoes, peaches and dab rigs. I saw picked beans and marijuana clones, carrots and cold water hash.

If you happen to be up that way, you can stop by between 11 a.m. and 4:20 p.m. next Saturday.

Read More . . . .

Mendocino County

The State of Jefferson is Back - Move for a 51st State

California is Too Damn Big

New state would be made up of 

the 20 northernmost counties

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (KCRA) —They came by the dozens, then hundreds.

Fueled by frustrations over a perceived unequal representation in state government, supporters of creating a new state in Northern California packed the El Dorado County supervisor's chambers in an effort to win their support.

The state of Jefferson would be made up of California's 20 northernmost counties with a population of approximately 1.7 million people, similar to the number of people living in Idaho.

"We just hope that the Board of Supervisors will actually see for themselves how much enthusiasm there is for people in El Dorado County, that want more representation," state of Jefferson organizer Mike Thomas said.

Should Northern California Secede and
Become the State of Jefferson?

Under the current vision, each of the 20 counties would have one state senator, while the 60 assemblymen would represent districts based on population size.

Currently the region in question is represented by just six lawmakers in Sacramento. The rest of California has 114.

"We have 11 counties up here with one state senator, L.A. County has 11 senators so you can see the mismatch," Thomas said. "Our founding fathers never envisioned that a state would actually do that."

Jefferson supporters presented before the supervisors and standing-room only crowd for about 45 minutes, hoping to convince them to issue a declaration saying the county intends to join the new state.

Eight Northern California counties have already thrown support for the new state. They include Modoc, Siskyou, Glenn, Tehama, Yuba, Sutter, Lake and Lassen counties.

In order for it to become a state, Jefferson would need a majority of votes in both houses of the California Legislature and Congress.

New states have been formed this way, but it hasn't happened for a long time. Maine was the last state to do it when it split from Massachusetts -- in 1820.

One of many proposed maps of a 51st state.

State of Jefferson supporters.

A group called Keep it California also presented before the supervisors.

Organizer Jamie Beutler acknowledged representation is an issue, but said Jefferson isn't the solution.

"It's much easier to work with what we have and solve our problems, which we believe can be solved, than to form an entire new state, and start all over again with all of the unknowns that there are," Beutler said.

Many said they were drawn to the idea of Jefferson, but remained skeptical.

Maggie Cogburn came here with her husband and wanted to learn how the logistics would work.

"It's pretty much in line with what I've already known, I'd like to hear more details on how are they going to do a lot of things," Maggie Cogburn said.

For others, the small government low taxes message struck a chord.

"Southern California and Central California has been dictating to the rural counties, and overriding our votes," said Terry Willhoit. "We're having to live to their standards in the metropolitan big cities, and we're not big city people up here, we are hometown people."

The supervisors did not vote on the state of Jefferson but promised to look into it more closely.

Read More . . . .

State of Jefferson petition goes to El Dorado Co. board

Jerry Brown Signs Bills Removing "Alien" From Labor Law

I'm not an "Alien"

I'm a "Foreign National"

(International Business Times)  -  California Gov. Jerry Brown signed several bills Monday changing immigration policy in the state. One of the three bills Brown signed removed the word "alien" from the state's labor code, an attempt to remove what some view as an offensive descriptor for people who aren't fully naturalized citizens.

Aside from the "alien" bill, Brown signed legislation that allows high school students who are legal permanent residents to sign up to work at polling sites to help Spanish speaking voters on election days. Brown also signed a bill that bans the consideration of a child's immigration status during civil liability cases.

"Alien is now commonly considered a derogatory term for a foreign-born person and has very negative connotations,” state Sen. Tony Mendoza, the Democrat who sponsored the bill, told the Los Angeles Times. “The word 'alien,' and any law prescribing an order for the issuance of employment to 'aliens,' has no place in the laws of our state and more importantly, should never be the basis for any employment hiring.”

The bills are the latest in a push for expanded immigration rights in the state. Those efforts have been gaining steam, including a push to bypass federal law and give work permits to undocumented immigrants to work on farms, expand health care coverage for undocumented children in the state and give residency permits to undocumented immigrants in California.

Read More . . . .

Supreme Court may have blocked Bullet Train

Environmental Laws May Block Train

• There is too much raw cash out there to truly stop the train. The corrupt special interests will keep trying to get around any barriers.

(Breitbart News)  -  The California Supreme Court threw a giant obstacle on the California bullet train’s track, ruling that the state agencies cannot escape the state’s environmental laws by claiming federal laws supersede them.

The case from which the argument against the California High Speed Rail Authority derives, City of San Diego vs. Board of Trustees of the California State University, revolved around the board wanting to expand the campus of San Diego State University (SDSU) to accommodate more than 10,000 additional students in the next few years. The board argued that CSU “may not lawfully pay to mitigate the off-campus environmental effects of its projects unless the Legislature makes an appropriation for that specific purpose.”

As explained by The National Law Review:

The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) mandates that, before approving a project, a public agency must first identify the project’s significant adverse environmental impacts, and then mitigate those impacts by adopting feasible, enforceable mitigation measures or selecting feasible alternatives that avoid the impacts. If mitigation is infeasible, the agency may approve the project despite adverse impacts only by finding that unmitigated effects are outweighed by the project’s benefits.

The board attempted to use City of Marina v. Board of Trustees (2009) to buttress its argument, as the court had ruled, “[A] state agency’s power to mitigate its project’s effects through voluntary mitigation payments is ultimately subject to legislative control; if the Legislature does not appropriate the money, the power does not exist.” The board argued that the court’s statement prohibited it from funding off-site mitigation without express appropriation by the Legislature.

But the court called the Marina language overstated, and ruled against CSU, stating, “In mitigating the effects of its projects, a public agency has access to all of its discretionary powers and not just the power to spend appropriations.” The court added:

CEQA does not authorize an agency to proceed with a project that will have significant unmitigated effects on the environment, based simply on a weighing of those effects against the project’s benefits, unless the measures to mitigate those effects are truly infeasible. Such a rule, even were it not wholly inconsistent with the relevant statute would tend to displace the fundamental obligation of ̳[e]ach public agency [to] mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment of projects that it carries out or approves whenever it is feasible to do so.

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California Democrats could allow more felons to vote

"I voted, Did you?"

Democrats Pander to Criminals

• To a Democrat if you obey the law you are a fool to be laughed at.
• Democrats drop their pants and bend over for illegal alien law breakers and now for convicted criminals giving them the vote as a "reward" for their conduct.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  California election officials are reversing a policy that prevents 45,000 felons from casting ballots, placing the state in the forefront of a movement to boost voting rights for ex-criminals.

California has until now maintained that state law prohibits felons from voting not only when they are in prison or on parole but also when they are under community supervision.

Democrat Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Tuesday that the state would now back voting rights for felons on community supervision, which is generally overseen by county probation departments.

The shift affects a growing number of felons because under the state’s effort to reduce prison and jail crowding, the vast majority of nonviolent offenders are being released into community supervision programs.

Padilla said the decision was “compelled by conscience.”

Using the "Race Card"

“It is not lost on me that persons of color are disproportionately represented in our correctional institutions and that undeniable disparities exist,” he added.

To ease prison overcrowding, California lawmakers in 2011 passed laws that require lower-level felons to serve their time in jails or under county supervision instead of state lockups and parole. Padilla’s predecessor, Debra Bowen, had instructed county election supervisors to extend the state’s felon voting ban to those offenders. She cited a staff opinion that voting restrictions don’t change just because post-prison release “is labeled something other than ‘parole.’”

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California: A state-run bank for marijuana industry?

Follow The Money

• It is refreshing to see Republicans and Democrats join arm-in-arm to help new businesses in the state . . . in order to collect MORE TAXES naturally.
• I am against a state run bank.  We have lots of private banks, but they are under the Big Brother thumb of the Feds.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  With legalized recreational marijuana possibly on the horizon in California, tax board officials signaled their interest Friday in forming a state-run bank that would allow pot-industry operators to transition from what has traditionally been a cash business.

Access to financial institutions is difficult given the federal prohibition on the drug.

Democrat Fiona Ma, of the state Board of Equalization, said that under the state’s nearly two-decade-old medical marijuana program, growers and dispensary operators typically pay their state taxes in cash, creating concerns about public safety.

With state initiatives to legitimize recreational pot aiming for next year’s ballot, and with federal lawmakers taking up legislative solutions, Ma said the time is right for officials here to begin assessing the details of what a state-run bank might look like.

“We’re a big state, and we have very creative minds,” Ma said at a meeting on the topic she called Friday with fellow board member George Runner. “We lead in many first-in-the-nation initiatives, and I believe we could create some sort of state depository that could handle cash deposits and also be available for the industry to make electronic transfers to make their payments.”

Laws designed to combat drug trafficking and money laundering have long restricted bank access. However, Obama administration officials have begun adjusting certain rules to extend banking services to state-approved marijuana companies.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amendment allowing banks to serve marijuana sellers in states where the drug is legal. At the same time, the Federal Reserve Board this month denied an application by a Colorado credit union seeking to provide banking for the pot industry.

In California, the lack of access to banking has hampered the state’s ability to collect taxes. A recent study of Ma’s San Francisco-based district that stretches across 23 counties found just 35 percent of the medical marijuana dispensaries paid sales taxes, totaling about $27 million last year.

Board of Equalization Chairman Jerome E. Horton this month said he supports an “Eliot Ness Plan” that enforces collection of taxes on cannabis. A Horton-supported bill by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, would create a state tax amnesty program for pot operators.

Storefront businesses that are paying taxes often carry the money in large sacks to field offices that state officials say are not equipped with money counters or other tools and safety measures associated with banks. Many do not have access to credit and use cash to obtain marijuana, pay employees and make transactions.

Runner said a recent tax delivery to his district office in Sacramento involved about $200,000 in cash.

A conservative Republican and former state senator from the Antelope Valley, Runner said he didn’t envision dedicating so much energy to marijuana. He has traveled to pot-rich Humboldt County to study the issue, and met with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“If a couple of years ago somebody would have told me we would be coming and spending this much time on cannabis ... I’d say ‘you must be smoking something,’” Runner said. But it’s clear “this is an industry that we’ve got to figure out how to deal with; how to make it legitimate, and try to help them in that process.”

Tax board members have yet to commit a plan to writing but say it would likely take the form of state legislation to be introduced in the next session.    Read More . . . .

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article29685532.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article29685532.html#storylink=cpyRead More . . . . 

Newsom has $5.5 million for 2018 California governor's race

Gavin Who?

(AP) - California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom reports that he has already banked nearly $5.5 million for a possible run for governor that's still more than three years away.

The Democrat and former San Francisco mayor filed campaign finance reports Friday showing he has $2.5 million in an exploratory account set up in February.

That's on top of the nearly $3 million in his re-election account for lieutenant governor.

Among his biggest donors are technology leaders such as Yahoo! Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. He also received contributions from the California Nurses Association and the Service Employees International Union's health care branch.

Gov. Jerry Brown reported Friday that he has $19.6 million in his re-election account, though he is termed out next year.

Read More . . . .