Legislators pass sham budget to protect their paychecks

Let’s say you want a promotion to a higherranking position that will also mean a hefty increase in pay, but to be considered you need a master’s degree in your field and you only have a bachelor’s degree.

You have three choices: Be satisfied with the job you have, go back to school to get that advanced degree or lie about having it already. You might get away with the latter but if you get caught, you probably will be fired.

Something like that occurred last week when the Legislature pretended to have a state budget, but it’s really a sham to protect lawmakers’ paychecks.

The stage was set for this political charade 13 years ago when voters passed Proposition 25, which lowered the legislative vote requirement for budgets from twothirds to a simple majority.

Democrats and their political allies placed the measure on the ballot to block Republicans from having any say over the budget, thus ending decades of often convoluted dealmaking that sometimes delayed budget enactment for weeks or even months.

Letters to the Editor

What was the point again?

EDITOR:

I’ve lived my entire adult life arguing how Title 9 was unfair to men participating in college sports, but now I’ve seen everything. The supposed same people who pushed for fairness and empowerment to women under Title 9 are mandating that men be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

Summary

The California Legislature played charades last week, passing a budget bill to meet the June 15 constitutional deadline even though it’s not the real budget. It will, however, protect lawmakers’ paychecks.

Proposition 25 not only lowered the vote requirement but decreed that “in any year in which the budget bill is not passed by the Legislature by midnight on June 15, there shall be no appropriation from the current budget or future budget to pay any salary or reimbursement for travel or living expenses for members of the Legislature during any regular or special session for the period from midnight on June 15 until the day that the budget bill is presented to the governor. No salary or reimbursement for

■ See WALTERS, page A5

Guest Column

I’m old enough to remember the arguments against Title 9 being, what if men want to participate in the women’s sports? Here’s what I know, I was opposed to girls competing against boys in wrestling because a 13-year-old girl is biologically physically more advanced than a 13-year-old boy in the same weight class. Compounded with is what happens to a boy’s psyche who loses to a girl; it just didn’t seem fair.

Today in California, girls have an all-female state wrestling tournament. California JUCO has instituted that there is now mandatory women’s wrestling to coincide with men’s and many California four-year schools like Menlo College have robust teams that compete and win nationally.

I believe trans people should have the option of competing in the division they were born in or have their own classification to compete in.

I believe that the purpose of male and female sports is for fairness and the empowerment of women. I don’t find it fair if people born male take over women’s sports. I also believe that trans people have a right of empowerment to compete in sports against other trans people.

KEN STEERS Cameron Park

Creating demand

EDITOR:

Scott Taylor’s letter on gun violence is one of the most clueless I’ve read in a long time. What he calls assault rifles tells me he wouldn’t know a real assault rifle if he tripped over it.

Most shootings are gang and youth related and they primarily use handguns. Which, by the way, can be reloaded so fast that you probably wouldn’t notice the di erence between those and the evil, high-capacity magazines.

Before 1968 one could go into a store and buy a gun with almost no paperwork besides the receipt and yet we had far fewer problems. How does that square with your availability argument, Mr. Taylor? Of course back then, when kids messed up they were punished and if they were violent at school the students were quickly expelled and sent to continuation schools. Now they come up with sociological excuses for them and let their violence infect the rest of the student body.

Also, Mr. Taylor makes no reference to the thousands of violent felons the Democrats have released from prisons and the armed parolees released after 10-day timeouts in jail. His argument is about as bad as promoting severe gasoline restrictions while freeing arsonists by the thousands.

Most ridiculous of all is Mr. Taylor’s four steps to mitigate the problem. His first is making gun manufacturers liable for the misuse of their products. Hope you like walking Mr. Taylor since car manufactures would be out of business quickly as they would be responsible for all drunk-driving deaths or injuries.

He says we need to make guns less available. First, as I pointed out earlier, we had less crime when they were more available like in the ‘50s. Second, remember prohibition? Prohibition didn’t end drinking, it created a bigger demand for it which organized crime quickly filled.

Those gangs bringing truckloads of drugs across the border are not into drugs, Mr. Taylor; they are into money and anything that provides it. Get draconian and create a demand at the same time, you create a market for guns that the gangs would quickly fill like they did with alcohol. And the guns they bring in won’t be what you call assault rifles, they’ll be the real thing.

Criminals should love you, Mr. Taylor, because people like you and many on the left unknowingly support criminals’ agendas.

GEORGE ALGER Placerville

How about a presidential campaign about vision and principles?

With the most recent entry of former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie into the presidential race, I count now 12 Republican candidates in the field.

Former President Donald Trump retains a strong lead in the polls, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a strong second.

But it is still very early in the game and even the most casual observer of politics knows that the situation is fluid and what will be remains to be seen.

What is clear is that in the big picture of things, Americans are not at all happy with the situation in their country.

In most recent Gallup polling, only 18% say they are satisfied with the direction of the country. This is not new.

Over the last 15 years there was only one month in which more than 40% expressed satisfaction with how things are going.

Looking at the breakdown by party ID, Gallup shows, as of April, only 4% of Republicans satisfied with the country’s direction, 16% of independents and 29% of Democrats.

This tells me there is a big opportunity for change to a Republican presidency.

But the question remains: Who and what it will take?

More importantly, will the presidential campaign be another exercise in bumper cars, where the one who makes noise the best wins? Or will we hear and choose a vision for the nation and its future?

Recently in a Wall Street Journal column, former Wisconsin Gov. and presidential candidate Scott Walker o ered good advice.

Walker was an enormously successful governor and conservative reformer in Wisconsin. This made him a star and he entered the 2016 presidential race. But he failed.

He attributes his failure to running on his record rather than laying out a vision of “big, bold ideas” for the country.

Rather than listening to consultants and running on his record, Walker says he wishes he laid out an aggressive program like “a national flat tax, sending the responsibility for education back to the states and schools, work requirements for public assistance and term limits for public service.”

I think it’s good advice. But I would take it one step further.

We need to restore discussion about what the country is about.

Regarding issues, I know what I would like to hear. I have been writing about it for years.

On the economic front, we must get our fiscal house in order. Republicans had success in the recent debt ceiling debate. But relatively speaking, it was a tiny victory. The country is still staggering under massive government and debt, which is retarding productivity and growth.

A major part of the government burden is tied to our bankrupt Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs that no candidate has shown the courage to take on.

On the social front, the country is dangerously aging because of the collapse of family and children and, for years, a free abortion regime.

I want to see candidates take these things on.

But more, we need candidates to talk about what our country is about. Who are we?

Are we a free nation under God?

If yes, what does this mean? What principles does this translate into regarding how we live and how we understand our government, our Constitution and how we are governed? And what policies follow from these principles?

If we are not a free nation under God, what does that mean and where does it take us?