The State of CA is broke, and both sides of the CA political spectrum couldn't be further apart on a potential solution, "It's The West Coast Heavy Weight Bout of 2010." On March 2010 John A. Perez was sworn in as CA assembly speaker.

New CA Speaker Grants OUTRAGEOUS Assembly Pay Hikes

Absolutely beyond belief. Not only is this raise completely outrageous given the current budget circumstances, economy and pay scale of equivalent positions. It shows that Mr. Perez is a blatant hypocrite based on his Swearing In Speech, excerpted below.

Pérez said he would work to implement innovative ideas around job creation and government reform and he also pledged to work across both sides of the aisle to deliver results for Californians.

March 1, 2010

"At his swearing-in as California's 68th Assembly Speaker at the State Capitol today, Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) said his top priority is to get Californians back to work. In his speech, which was delivered before several hundred community and business leaders, working men and women and elected officials, Pérez said he would work to implement innovative ideas around job creation and government reform and he also pledged to work across both sides of the aisle to deliver results for Californians.

It took a mere two weeks for California Democratic Speaker John A. Perez to prove his top priority is not jobs, but rather spending money and padding the pockets of his friends and associates.

Mr. Perez needs to be summarily fired for his actions or impeached and removed from office.

Excerpts from the Sacramento Bee Article below.

New Assembly Speaker John A. Perez gave his top aide an annual pay increase of nearly $65,000 - about $5,400 per month - upon becoming leader of the lower house, records show.

Sara Ramirez, Perez's chief of staff, was one of eight Capitol aides receiving pay hikes or promotions from the Los Angeles Democrat on March 1, the day he was sworn into office, according to documents obtained under open-records law.

Ramirez's annual salary is now $190,008 -- $80,424 higher than that of Perez or Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, whose pay was dropped from $133,639 to $109,584 last year by the state's independent salary-setting commission. Legislators not in leadership positions are paid $95,291 a year.

And now May 2010,

Assembly Democrats call for new oil tax, borrowing from Wall Street to balance California's budget. CA State Assembly Speaker, John A. Perez has proposed the most ludicrous idea on the planet:

At the heart of the proposal is the idea of raiding the state's bottle deposits for the next 20 years and then getting an $8.7-billion loan from Wall Street. The programs currently funded by bottle deposits would be reimbursed by a new tax on oil production.

Under his plan, the speaker would cast aside almost all the budget cuts Schwarzenegger proposed earlier this month. The state would use the borrowed money from the bottle deposits to fund programs this year.

To pay back the loan in the future years, the state would then levy a nearly 10% oil severance tax.

Perhaps the key feature to his plan, according to Perez's office: Democratic lawmakers could bypass their GOP colleagues, whose votes are typically required to raise taxes, in approving the proposal.

How? A convoluted mechanism that would swap existing state sales taxes for local sales taxes in order to skirt state law that requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes. Consumers would pay the same on taxable purchases.

Perez (D-Los Angeles) called his budget plan a "unique and creative approach." A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it "legal gymnastics."

It's just more of the same from the California Dems; Spend like a drunken sailor, borrowing money, and tax, tax, tax. It really should be no surprise, John A. Perez previously served as political director for the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 324, and served in a similar position for the California Labor Federation. His bread is buttered on spending the public's money on union employees.

All one can conclude is Assembly Speaker Perez is still under the dilution of attempting a one- time band aid for the CA budget issue in hopes of a rebound in the CA economy to bail the state out, all the while he's afraid to deal with the problem like a responsible adult, treating the public's money with far more respect and dignity. One time solutions do not fix re-occurring expense problems!

Furthermore, the democrats produce no estimates for the following year's budget, which almost guarantees another budget deficit for 2011-2012 because they do not deal with excessive spending. Yes, CA State Assembly Speaker John A. Perez is my Donkey of the Month for May 2010.

Hope all is well.

Note: My definition for donkey is: A being or animal that moves ardently and stubbornly in the wrong direction wasting every one's time to the detriment of others. If you have a different definition, so be it, and that's your constitutional right. I'll be doing the "Donkey of the Month" on my website, and if should you have a candidate for this prestigious award, please feel free to make that nomination to me directly. Email your candidate, and why you feel they deserve the award. Also, email a link to supporting data. I reserve the right to write about and post such nominations. I look forward to hearing from you.