Steven Greenhut
California
Another Way California Wastes Taxpayer Dollars
California legislators never have enough time, and always lack the vision, to deal appropriately with the state’s pressing budget and infrastructure problems. But they are great at self-aggrandizement and at catering to the special-interest groups that assure their re-election. One would think, for instance, the Assembly Transportation Committee would be ...
California
Don’t trust the locals yet
California’s redevelopment agencies were corrupt and had to go. But it’s hardly obvious that re-empowering local officials with “new and improved” economic development authority is a wise idea. Don’t misunderstand. It wasn’t that city officials who served on state redevelopment agency boards received bribes and kickbacks, or engaged in what ...
California
A Victory for Property Rights in California
I’m still giddy after the California Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 29 that the state had every right to shut down those noxious enemies of property rights and fiscal responsibility known as redevelopment agencies. Better yet, the state’s high court ruled that another law that allowed those agencies to come ...
California
More proof of redistricting manipulation by Democrats
Over the summer, the website I edit, CalWatchdog, published a series of articles documenting the way that the political Left exploited the redistricting process in California to assure strong gains for the Democratic Party. The report included an exclusive interview with a redistricting commission member who alleged partisan behavior by ...
California
California Senate banishes pension truth-teller
California Democrats are so controlled by the public sector unions that they won’t even tolerate truth-telling by fellow Democrats, as evidenced by the end of David Crane’s tenure as a University of California regent. Crane is a true progressive who argues that one cannot be a progressive without backing pension ...
California
Scrooge-like predictions for the New Year
The United States and California in particular are continuing down a dangerous path where more decisions about almost everything in life are made by government officials rather than by individual citizens. That’s a fancy way of saying that we are losing our freedoms, slowly but surely. Maybe it’s not so ...
California
Fixing California’s Broken Legislation
The approval rating for the job the California Legislature is doing remains pitiful, ranging in the past year or so from a record-low 9 percent to 16 percent. That percentage of Californians will no doubt support any possible idea you place before them on a public opinion poll, which should ...
California
Could more lawmakers do less harm?
The approval rating for the job done by the California Legislature remains pitiful, ranging in the past year or so from a record-low 9 percent to 16 percent. That percentage of Californians would no doubt support any possible idea you place before them on a public opinion poll, which should ...
California
Real meaning of Brown’s ‘open letter’
Gov. Jerry Brown last Monday released “An Open Letter to the People of California,” in which he called for the state’s taxpayers to approve tax-raising initiatives to “fix” the state’s structural deficit. Here is the letter and my interpretation of what Brown really meant to say: Brown: When I became ...
California
California ‘The Big State that Can’t’ (or won’t)
As the public employee pension and health care benefit crisis sweeps across the nation, some states are dealing seriously with these multibillion-dollar threats to public services and treasuries. And other states remain in deep denial. California, to no one’s surprise, is moving stridently in the wrong direction. The tiny state ...
Another Way California Wastes Taxpayer Dollars
California legislators never have enough time, and always lack the vision, to deal appropriately with the state’s pressing budget and infrastructure problems. But they are great at self-aggrandizement and at catering to the special-interest groups that assure their re-election. One would think, for instance, the Assembly Transportation Committee would be ...
Don’t trust the locals yet
California’s redevelopment agencies were corrupt and had to go. But it’s hardly obvious that re-empowering local officials with “new and improved” economic development authority is a wise idea. Don’t misunderstand. It wasn’t that city officials who served on state redevelopment agency boards received bribes and kickbacks, or engaged in what ...
A Victory for Property Rights in California
I’m still giddy after the California Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 29 that the state had every right to shut down those noxious enemies of property rights and fiscal responsibility known as redevelopment agencies. Better yet, the state’s high court ruled that another law that allowed those agencies to come ...
More proof of redistricting manipulation by Democrats
Over the summer, the website I edit, CalWatchdog, published a series of articles documenting the way that the political Left exploited the redistricting process in California to assure strong gains for the Democratic Party. The report included an exclusive interview with a redistricting commission member who alleged partisan behavior by ...
California Senate banishes pension truth-teller
California Democrats are so controlled by the public sector unions that they won’t even tolerate truth-telling by fellow Democrats, as evidenced by the end of David Crane’s tenure as a University of California regent. Crane is a true progressive who argues that one cannot be a progressive without backing pension ...
Scrooge-like predictions for the New Year
The United States and California in particular are continuing down a dangerous path where more decisions about almost everything in life are made by government officials rather than by individual citizens. That’s a fancy way of saying that we are losing our freedoms, slowly but surely. Maybe it’s not so ...
Fixing California’s Broken Legislation
The approval rating for the job the California Legislature is doing remains pitiful, ranging in the past year or so from a record-low 9 percent to 16 percent. That percentage of Californians will no doubt support any possible idea you place before them on a public opinion poll, which should ...
Could more lawmakers do less harm?
The approval rating for the job done by the California Legislature remains pitiful, ranging in the past year or so from a record-low 9 percent to 16 percent. That percentage of Californians would no doubt support any possible idea you place before them on a public opinion poll, which should ...
Real meaning of Brown’s ‘open letter’
Gov. Jerry Brown last Monday released “An Open Letter to the People of California,” in which he called for the state’s taxpayers to approve tax-raising initiatives to “fix” the state’s structural deficit. Here is the letter and my interpretation of what Brown really meant to say: Brown: When I became ...
California ‘The Big State that Can’t’ (or won’t)
As the public employee pension and health care benefit crisis sweeps across the nation, some states are dealing seriously with these multibillion-dollar threats to public services and treasuries. And other states remain in deep denial. California, to no one’s surprise, is moving stridently in the wrong direction. The tiny state ...
