Steven Greenhut

Agriculture

Enviros trade in human misery

SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Business & Economics

Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy

Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Business & Economics

Legends in their own minds

SACRAMENTO – When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
Business & Economics

No roads to recovery in sight

With California teetering on insolvency, government union activists and liberal legislators are trying to whip the public into a “please tax us more” frenzy by scaring people about the consequences of spending cuts. At a union rally in Sacramento recently, one protester hoisted a “Raise Our Taxes” sign, which typifies ...
Business & Economics

Who could blame us for cussing?

SACRAMENTO California’s union-dominated, Democratic-controlled Legislature is temperamentally incapable of fixing the state’s structural budget deficit, given that such a fix would require reduced government spending and the granting of fewer benefits to the state’s class of government workers. As Rome burned, legislators last week debated a meaningless “no-cussing” measure, which ...
Business & Economics

The Road To Serfdom

Steven Greenhut appeared on Fox Business’ The John Stossel Show to discuss the road to serfdom and public employee pension programs.
Business & Economics

Retreat from pension reform fight

SACRAMENTO Anyone who thinks that gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman offers much hope for fixing the state’s structural fiscal mess should now wonder whether the billionaire former eBay chief executive might end up being nothing more than another Arnold Schwarzenegger – a governor who sometimes talks a good game but who, ...
Business & Economics

State not exactly the well-oiled machine

SACRAMENTO A new report from the California State Auditor should throw cold water on those who believe that the best way to solve the state’s problems is by expanding government power, increasing government funding and creating new regulatory powers and agencies. The auditor has released its annual report analyzing how ...
Business & Economics

Insurance czar’s cheap political ploy

One of the best ways to evaluate the merits of any politicians’ proposed new rule or power grab is to first consider whether it’s something you would support if your political foes were in power. Unfortunately, Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner apparently hasn’t employed that (or any other) common-sense test ...
Commentary

State meddling hamstrings schools

SACRAMENTO To show the results of union dominance of the public education system, John Stossel, host of Fox News’ “Stossel,” on a recent show held up a convoluted chart that detailed, in small print, the amazing lengths to which New York school administrators must go to fire an incompetent teacher. ...
Agriculture

Enviros trade in human misery

SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Business & Economics

Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy

Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Business & Economics

Legends in their own minds

SACRAMENTO – When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
Business & Economics

No roads to recovery in sight

With California teetering on insolvency, government union activists and liberal legislators are trying to whip the public into a “please tax us more” frenzy by scaring people about the consequences of spending cuts. At a union rally in Sacramento recently, one protester hoisted a “Raise Our Taxes” sign, which typifies ...
Business & Economics

Who could blame us for cussing?

SACRAMENTO California’s union-dominated, Democratic-controlled Legislature is temperamentally incapable of fixing the state’s structural budget deficit, given that such a fix would require reduced government spending and the granting of fewer benefits to the state’s class of government workers. As Rome burned, legislators last week debated a meaningless “no-cussing” measure, which ...
Business & Economics

The Road To Serfdom

Steven Greenhut appeared on Fox Business’ The John Stossel Show to discuss the road to serfdom and public employee pension programs.
Business & Economics

Retreat from pension reform fight

SACRAMENTO Anyone who thinks that gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman offers much hope for fixing the state’s structural fiscal mess should now wonder whether the billionaire former eBay chief executive might end up being nothing more than another Arnold Schwarzenegger – a governor who sometimes talks a good game but who, ...
Business & Economics

State not exactly the well-oiled machine

SACRAMENTO A new report from the California State Auditor should throw cold water on those who believe that the best way to solve the state’s problems is by expanding government power, increasing government funding and creating new regulatory powers and agencies. The auditor has released its annual report analyzing how ...
Business & Economics

Insurance czar’s cheap political ploy

One of the best ways to evaluate the merits of any politicians’ proposed new rule or power grab is to first consider whether it’s something you would support if your political foes were in power. Unfortunately, Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner apparently hasn’t employed that (or any other) common-sense test ...
Commentary

State meddling hamstrings schools

SACRAMENTO To show the results of union dominance of the public education system, John Stossel, host of Fox News’ “Stossel,” on a recent show held up a convoluted chart that detailed, in small print, the amazing lengths to which New York school administrators must go to fire an incompetent teacher. ...
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