Government Spending
Blog
With $178 in General Fund, Hollister Becomes California’s Fiscal Mismanagement Capital
When I was a kid, my grandparents retired not to Miami or Palm Springs as many retirees do – rather, but rather the city of Hollister, about 45 minutes of San José. Known as the unofficial “earthquake capital of the world,” the home of the famous Casa de Fruta fruit ...
Blog
Taxpayer Dollars Should Not Fund Political Campaigns
Taxpayer dollars should be used for legitimate public responsibilities, such as maintaining roads, public safety, education, keeping communities clean, and paying down debt. Financing political campaigns should not become another government responsibility. Public campaign-financing programs use taxpayer dollars to help qualifying candidates run for office. Supporters argue that these programs ...
Blog
California cities turn to tax hikes to deal with overspending
Two years ago, 125 local tax measures appeared on ballots. Ninety, says the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, passed. A number of cities now have local sales taxes that exceed 10%. Several cities in “conservative” Orange County are likewise asking voters to approve various local tax increases. We won’t know until the deadline in August how ...
Blog
Why Don’t We Find More Waste, Fraud and Abuse in California?
Shocking exposes of waste, fraud, and abuse in state government have dominated media headlines in recent weeks. Our friends Christopher Rufo and Kenneth Schrupp at the Manhattan Institute uncovered an unfinished wildlife “bridge to nowhere” in Agoura Hills, which has cost taxpayers over $100 million to date and counting. CBS ...
Budget
TSA’s Time Has Come
For all the focus on reforming Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) most in need of defunding is the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). Founded in the wake of 9/11, the TSA was a response to the hijackers’ use of box cutters to ...
Blog
Will Residents Benefit from Latest SF ‘CEO Tax’? History Says No.
The reasoning behind the tax is to ensure “that the biggest corporations, whose executives earn hundreds of times more than their average workers, contribute their fair share.” Stand Up believes dollars generated by the tax will offset the loss of $400 million in federal funds that “have threatened essential city services,” ...
Business & Economics
Government Shutdowns Are a Reminder To Privatize
Federal government shutdowns mean many things to different people. For ordinary Americans, they are a reminder of dysfunction in Washington. For partisans, they are an opportunity to blame the other side. But they can also be an opportunity for Americans to reconsider how and why the federal government does some ...
Business & Economics
Who was really to blame for the government shutdown?
The U.S. government shutdown has finally come to an end after 43 days that resulted in thousands of flights being cancelled or delayed, food aid benefits for millions of Americans being jeopardized and hundreds of thousands of federal workers being furloughed. But the question is: Which party bears responsibility for ...
Blog
The Slavers Call for Reparations – We Go “On Metaphor Alert” Again, as AU and EU Debate History
This theme appears to be a final realization of the goals outlined in the African Union’s Abuja Proclamation of 1993. At that time, the group (then technically the Organization of African Unity) stated: “What matters is…the responsibility of those states and nations whose economic evolution once depended on slave labor ...
California
Assembly Republican Leader Emeritus James Gallagher – The Exit Interview
Our special guest this week is outgoing Assembly Republican Leader – and the very first guest on Next Round podcast – James Gallagher. He looks back on his time as GOP leader, reflecting on his biggest accomplishments, what surprised him the most during his leadership, his partisan battles with Speaker ...
With $178 in General Fund, Hollister Becomes California’s Fiscal Mismanagement Capital
When I was a kid, my grandparents retired not to Miami or Palm Springs as many retirees do – rather, but rather the city of Hollister, about 45 minutes of San José. Known as the unofficial “earthquake capital of the world,” the home of the famous Casa de Fruta fruit ...
Taxpayer Dollars Should Not Fund Political Campaigns
Taxpayer dollars should be used for legitimate public responsibilities, such as maintaining roads, public safety, education, keeping communities clean, and paying down debt. Financing political campaigns should not become another government responsibility. Public campaign-financing programs use taxpayer dollars to help qualifying candidates run for office. Supporters argue that these programs ...
California cities turn to tax hikes to deal with overspending
Two years ago, 125 local tax measures appeared on ballots. Ninety, says the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, passed. A number of cities now have local sales taxes that exceed 10%. Several cities in “conservative” Orange County are likewise asking voters to approve various local tax increases. We won’t know until the deadline in August how ...
Why Don’t We Find More Waste, Fraud and Abuse in California?
Shocking exposes of waste, fraud, and abuse in state government have dominated media headlines in recent weeks. Our friends Christopher Rufo and Kenneth Schrupp at the Manhattan Institute uncovered an unfinished wildlife “bridge to nowhere” in Agoura Hills, which has cost taxpayers over $100 million to date and counting. CBS ...
TSA’s Time Has Come
For all the focus on reforming Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) most in need of defunding is the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). Founded in the wake of 9/11, the TSA was a response to the hijackers’ use of box cutters to ...
Will Residents Benefit from Latest SF ‘CEO Tax’? History Says No.
The reasoning behind the tax is to ensure “that the biggest corporations, whose executives earn hundreds of times more than their average workers, contribute their fair share.” Stand Up believes dollars generated by the tax will offset the loss of $400 million in federal funds that “have threatened essential city services,” ...
Government Shutdowns Are a Reminder To Privatize
Federal government shutdowns mean many things to different people. For ordinary Americans, they are a reminder of dysfunction in Washington. For partisans, they are an opportunity to blame the other side. But they can also be an opportunity for Americans to reconsider how and why the federal government does some ...
Who was really to blame for the government shutdown?
The U.S. government shutdown has finally come to an end after 43 days that resulted in thousands of flights being cancelled or delayed, food aid benefits for millions of Americans being jeopardized and hundreds of thousands of federal workers being furloughed. But the question is: Which party bears responsibility for ...
The Slavers Call for Reparations – We Go “On Metaphor Alert” Again, as AU and EU Debate History
This theme appears to be a final realization of the goals outlined in the African Union’s Abuja Proclamation of 1993. At that time, the group (then technically the Organization of African Unity) stated: “What matters is…the responsibility of those states and nations whose economic evolution once depended on slave labor ...
Assembly Republican Leader Emeritus James Gallagher – The Exit Interview
Our special guest this week is outgoing Assembly Republican Leader – and the very first guest on Next Round podcast – James Gallagher. He looks back on his time as GOP leader, reflecting on his biggest accomplishments, what surprised him the most during his leadership, his partisan battles with Speaker ...