Steven Greenhut
Business & Economics
Some fight the good fight for freedom
I, as a nattering nabob, see negativism everywhere. The Legislature manages to do just about everything wrong. The Obama administration – like the Bush administration – is an embarrassment bordering on a disaster. Debt is rising, freedom is receding, and our governments keep getting bigger and more wasteful. I, as ...
Business & Economics
Progressives for Pension Reform?
With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state will need to tap its general fund for billions to prop up faltering public-employee pension funds. With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state ...
Business & Economics
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Business & Economics
Pension escape routes being cut
I’ve frequently argued that, as the state faces an unfunded pension liability that’s as high as $500 billion, legislators are not doing anything about a problem that is depleting public services and imposing additional debt and tax burdens on Californians. In fact, the state’s legislators are doing something: They are ...
Business & Economics
Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare
SACRAMENTO – It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from “raiding” local treasuries, this November initiative simply pits different government groups ...
Business & Economics
Corruption in America
ANNONCER: Welcome to a special edition of “Money Rocks: Corruption in America, the Bolling Files with Eric Bolling.” Jerry Brown’s investigating the corrupt town of Bell, California, but a law firm connected with that city’s attorney forked over thousands to Brown’s election campaign. This bell is cracked. When are the ...
Business & Economics
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
Commentary
How to make shopping more annoying
SACRAMENTO – While walking though the supermarket the other day, my wife and I began playing a game I call Unintended Consequences. We tried to guess how things will really work after some new law is put in place. Our governments continually pass legislation that promises to fix every problem ...
Business & Economics
Drop the starfish, you criminal
SACRAMENTO – Advocates for big government can always be expected to stoke our fears to justify higher taxes, more regulations and the hiring of additional government workers. One of the most sensational examples of this phenomenon was provided last week as the Sacramento Bee published a front-page investigation warning about ...
Commentary
Student DNA tests could go wild
SACRAMENTO – The University of California, Berkeley, has inadvertently stepped into a brewing ethical debate over genetic testing and medical privacy after it asked the incoming freshman class to submit to the campus cotton swabs with DNA samples from their saliva. The unusual experiment is part of Berkeley’s annual “On ...
Some fight the good fight for freedom
I, as a nattering nabob, see negativism everywhere. The Legislature manages to do just about everything wrong. The Obama administration – like the Bush administration – is an embarrassment bordering on a disaster. Debt is rising, freedom is receding, and our governments keep getting bigger and more wasteful. I, as ...
Progressives for Pension Reform?
With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state will need to tap its general fund for billions to prop up faltering public-employee pension funds. With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state ...
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Pension escape routes being cut
I’ve frequently argued that, as the state faces an unfunded pension liability that’s as high as $500 billion, legislators are not doing anything about a problem that is depleting public services and imposing additional debt and tax burdens on Californians. In fact, the state’s legislators are doing something: They are ...
Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare
SACRAMENTO – It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from “raiding” local treasuries, this November initiative simply pits different government groups ...
Corruption in America
ANNONCER: Welcome to a special edition of “Money Rocks: Corruption in America, the Bolling Files with Eric Bolling.” Jerry Brown’s investigating the corrupt town of Bell, California, but a law firm connected with that city’s attorney forked over thousands to Brown’s election campaign. This bell is cracked. When are the ...
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
How to make shopping more annoying
SACRAMENTO – While walking though the supermarket the other day, my wife and I began playing a game I call Unintended Consequences. We tried to guess how things will really work after some new law is put in place. Our governments continually pass legislation that promises to fix every problem ...
Drop the starfish, you criminal
SACRAMENTO – Advocates for big government can always be expected to stoke our fears to justify higher taxes, more regulations and the hiring of additional government workers. One of the most sensational examples of this phenomenon was provided last week as the Sacramento Bee published a front-page investigation warning about ...
Student DNA tests could go wild
SACRAMENTO – The University of California, Berkeley, has inadvertently stepped into a brewing ethical debate over genetic testing and medical privacy after it asked the incoming freshman class to submit to the campus cotton swabs with DNA samples from their saliva. The unusual experiment is part of Berkeley’s annual “On ...
