Greg Perrone

Please define free. Somebody is paying for these things. If this is not the case, please chime in. If by free you mean take more from hard earned wages via taxes and fees, then I concede. It's free stuff. If by free you mean make business owners pay more thereby driving up costs, then I concede. It's free stuff.

Oh no — next comes free preschool, free school meals, higher wages, and tuition-free community college. Truly terrifying stuff.

Your argument is once again misleading in limiting the qualifier to Federal Income Tax. These and all other businesses pay through the nose as it were to stay in business, hire and pay tax paying employees who in turn are consumers paying more taxes and fees, provide taxable goods and services. So using your logic, Federal Unemployment Tax doesn't count? They pay that. One half of employees Social Security doesn't count? They pay that too. Sales and use tax doesn't count? Oh yeah, they pay that too. Worker's Comp doesn't count? Yup, you guessed it, employer paid. Regulatory fees specific to industries do not count? They don't pay themselves now. Employee benefits don't count? That's right, raise income tax so they can't pay for these. What you mean to say to tax paying citizens is our government has a spending problem and companies should be taxed to the brink of not making a profit to satisfy the beast. And by the way, taxing the rich if I may borrow your mantra hurts the ones that can least afford the added cost of excessive taxation. So have you been misleading us all along or are you lying to us now?

If you paid even a penny in federal income tax last year, you paid more than: Tesla Southwest Disney Live Nation HP United PayPal CVS Health Palantir Citigroup PG&E 3M That's right. They paid $0 in federal income tax. It's time for big corporations to pay their fair share.

I challenge you to find a more stark yet accurate contrast! On one hand we have American ingenuity and exceptional talent. On the other??? California grift and failed leadership. The sad reality is we did this to ourselves. We voted for this crap. Or more to the point, we didn't do enough to elect competent governance. Vote smarter, vote your values, vote @CAGOP @CRAGOP Republican! Remember, elections have consequences. Sometimes disastrous ones.

@WhiteHouse Where are the pictures of the US. Men's, U.S. Women's, and U.S Paralympic Hockey Teams? American Exceptionalism.🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM 🇺🇸

@filosophymajor @CBSSacramento At last count according to the government, not internet memes, there are 9 refineries operating. So nice try there. As for Arizona being #1, let's review. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Better not to post and appear to be a fool than to start typing and remove all doubt."

@PerroneGreg @CBSSacramento Umm, Those states don’t have 18 refineries, and 31 million registered vehicles like California does…so how in the hell can you think they’re the same, or even similar? Btw, explain this? Must be trump, or the state, because according to you it can’t be the O&G industry.

For years, California leaders accused oil companies of price gouging at the pump, but a state investigation found no evidence of that. Instead, a CBS News California investigation found what's really driving the highest gas prices in the U.S. cbsloc.al/3PPOHwW

@cragop @CAgovernor @ChadBianco @TeamSteveHilton Now every man, woman, child, and whatever other gender you want to identify as OWES about $450 to the state in addition to what we've already "donated." Who thinks this is a good idea? I know who. The representatives we elected. California does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. California has enough money, what it doesn't have is enough competency in government. What it doesn't have is leadership.

You make some good points of discussion, but one thing is still unclear. Why hasn't the Oil and Gas industry stabbed states like Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and on and on in the back? Is it at all possible there's incompetent leadership in Sacramento at play?🤔

@CBSSacramento CBS is GOP BS. Having refineries in California NEVER resulted in lower gas prices in California. The Oil and Gas industry has ALWAYS STABBED CALIFORNIANS IN THE BACK. That’s why Californians want electric vehicles powered by solar, because the O&G industry is evil.

@maziehirono Oh crap, I find myself agreeing with a leftist. Although wouldn't it be hilarious if President Trump changed his name for a few days to Don King?😂😂😂 Then we'd have a king for a president.🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Donald Trump is not, never will be, and has never been a king. #NoKings

@WeTheBrandon Well, you're probably not wrong. But I hope you are. History has a terrible way of repeating itself.

It’s happening again.

@nettermike From your lips (or finger tips in this case) to God's ears.

Highest gas prices. Highest taxes. Highest cost of living. California has the most expensive everything — and nothing to show for it. That’s why a Republican is leading in the polls. Californians are DONE with one-party rule!

Here's where both sides of the political spectrum can be right. Lock this person up as he should be. That is where criminals are supposed to go. And if memory serves, prison comes with some level of healthcare. Poof...housing and healthcare on the taxpayer's dime. Then when his time is served, send him back. Poof...taxpayer funded transportation. Remind me what the problem is.

A Honduran migrant was just arrested in NYC for randomly pushing two strangers onto the subway tracks including an 81-year-old man Democrats want to give him taxpayer funded housing and healthcare

@GavinNewsom You were saying something about jackasses tearing down what? Can any jackass run that over budget too? Bless your heart.

Donald Trump is all about destruction. Destruction is not strength. He’s not a builder. Any jackass can knock down a barn, it takes a skilled carpenter to build one. Donald Trump is a jackass.

@CAgovernor Esto es muy significativo viniendo del gobernador más descaradamente incompetente y cruel en la historia de los Estados Unidos. Bless your heart.

¡Adios Kristi Noem! Tu pasarás a la historia como la Secretaria de Seguridad Nacional más descaradamente incompetente y cruel de la historia de Estados Unidos. Pero, despedirte no basta. Noem, Greg Bovino y Stephen Miller deben rendir cuentas por aterrorizar y poner en peligro al pueblo estadounidense.

If you have to ask THEY are the problem. It seems as though every time we fire them, they come back like a bad fungus and keep the grift going at a different government trough. The only legitimate answer is elimination through education of low IQ and under informed voters...like that is realistic in my lifetime. But I'll keep fighting for it.

How did Mitch McConnell go from being a nearly pennyless county judge to being a US senator worth $65 million?

@GBRA2023 (The Greater Bakersfield Republican Assembly) has been likened to the group responsible for this ad by the NY Times. I will wear that badge with honor. But as far as calling my senators and encouraging a vote on the SAVE Act, let's just say that communists, socialists, marxists, leftists, and California Senators will never support it. x.com/i/status/20272…

Your excellent analysis and timely explanation of how D.C. works should be a most read for anyone aspiring to help a candidate running for office and certainly the candidates as well. I have said repeatedly that the longer anyone is in D.C. the more left they become. The longer anyone is in Washington, the more Washington is in them. Check any voting records. They go from xyz county politician to Washington politician in short order. This is an excellent argument for term limits, even though the constitution already has term limit provisions built in.

Further explanation which I think is insightful: Washington DC is culturally liberal. The institutions that long-tenure senators interact with daily: the press corps, the think tanks both parties actually attend (Brookings, CFR, Aspen, Carnegie), the schools their kids go to, the dinner parties are all left-of-center. That creates asymmetric social pressure: A Republican who drifts left gets rewarded. The press calls them a "statesman," a "maverick," a "reasonable voice." They get invited to the bipartisan events. Their kids don't get weird looks at Sidwell Friends. McCain got this. Collins gets this. Murkowski gets this. There's a whole media infrastructure that celebrates the "heroic moderate Republican." A Democrat who drifts right gets... nothing. There's no equivalent conservative institutional establishment in DC that would celebrate them. No black-tie dinner full of journalists who would applaud them for being "courageous" by moving right. Their base would primary them. The press wouldn't reward them. So they don't. The incentive structure is one-directional. DC's Overton window is set by the press corps and the permanent institutions, and it pulls left. Republicans face constant pressure to accept that frame as the price of being taken seriously. Democrats are already inside the frame.

Excited to share what I'm working on as Visiting Fellow @OversightProject. The question I'm solving: why do Republicans vote against their own party... and their own voters on issues such as mass migration and SAVE ACT? Surprising early finding: FEC donations are only weakly correlated with voting behavior. Institutional affiliations (where senators trained, what orgs they've moved through, where they have membership) predict it far better. And almost nobody tracks that systematically. Building that infrastructure now. Major stress test: why Senate Republicans are slow-walking the SAVE Act despite 80% public support. Stay tuned.

This from The Daily Caller News Foundation outlining a winning DemocRat strategy. Who hates Trump most! Of course there doesn't seem to be anyone with an alternate plan nor do they think Californian's need one apparently. So to sum it up in practical terms we all understand, screw California as long as Trump is hated, despised, and loathed from the top dog. Is this what the DemocRat party has devolved into? That's rhetorical, the evidence speaks for itself.

Hey Gov. Newsom, thank you for once again positioning California to lead the nation. Your leadership is indeed undeniable...bless your heart.

Even if Sen. Thune loathed President Trump, he is paid to do what is right by the country. Let's hold him and all our senators to this. I thought for the longest time that the "talking" filibuster was the protocol, not just "mailing it in" from the bench. We the People allowed them the politicians to get lazy in their efforts to serve us. Call and write your U.S. senators and encourage a yes vote. patriotpost.us/articles/12515…

@larryelder Paul Krugman has been right about the U.S. economy almost as often as Joe Biden was right about foreign policy. So there is that.

“It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear. “Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” —Trump-hating Economist @paulkrugman, November 9, 2016, @nytimes