California
Business & Economics
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
Business & Economics
A Case for Affirmative Disclosure of Public Pensions
An appeals court has ruled that a public agency must hand over pension data to a newspaper. This is a welcome development but a recent case confirms that California remains far behind the curve on government transparency. The Sacramento Bee has been conducting investigations into public employee pensions and finds ...
Business & Economics
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Commentary
Medicaid is easier to fix than entitlement programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by Sen. Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income citizens ...
Business & Economics
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Health Care
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
California
How California Prisons Got So Bad
In the Assembly last week, legislators praised ethnic studies departments and had long-winded debates before voting to ban the trading of shark fins in California. But while state government becomes ever-more meddlesome in ever-expanding areas of private life, it’s increasingly clear that the Legislature and the state bureaucracies are incapable ...
Business & Economics
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
Business & Economics
Prisoner of the Union
When California governor Jerry Brown announced details last month of a two-year contract that he’d negotiated with California’s prison guards’ union, you could practically hear the sighs of disappointment from stalwarts who had hoped that the 73-year-old maverick might take on a few vested interests as he tried to close ...
California
Schwarzenegger a power-loving phony
SACRAMENTO Last weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, “Total Recall,” a 1990 sci-fi flick based on a Philip K. Dick novel and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is Schwarzenegger’s character an intergalactic double agent who saves the mutants on Mars from the evil plans of a nasty profiteer or is ...
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
A Case for Affirmative Disclosure of Public Pensions
An appeals court has ruled that a public agency must hand over pension data to a newspaper. This is a welcome development but a recent case confirms that California remains far behind the curve on government transparency. The Sacramento Bee has been conducting investigations into public employee pensions and finds ...
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Medicaid is easier to fix than entitlement programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by Sen. Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income citizens ...
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
How California Prisons Got So Bad
In the Assembly last week, legislators praised ethnic studies departments and had long-winded debates before voting to ban the trading of shark fins in California. But while state government becomes ever-more meddlesome in ever-expanding areas of private life, it’s increasingly clear that the Legislature and the state bureaucracies are incapable ...
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
Prisoner of the Union
When California governor Jerry Brown announced details last month of a two-year contract that he’d negotiated with California’s prison guards’ union, you could practically hear the sighs of disappointment from stalwarts who had hoped that the 73-year-old maverick might take on a few vested interests as he tried to close ...
Schwarzenegger a power-loving phony
SACRAMENTO Last weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, “Total Recall,” a 1990 sci-fi flick based on a Philip K. Dick novel and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is Schwarzenegger’s character an intergalactic double agent who saves the mutants on Mars from the evil plans of a nasty profiteer or is ...
