State Budget

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State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Education Budget Will Impact You

The Newsom Education Budget: No Bang for the Buck

In the 2019-20 budget–Newsom’s first enacted budget–California spent $103 billion in state, local, and federal funds for education, which translated to $17,423 per pupil. In the governor’s new proposed budget, total education spending comes in at a whopping $137 billion, which pencils out to $24,764 per pupil. All this added ...
Commentary

State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Public Safety Budget Will Impact You

The Newsom Public Safety Budget: Budgets are a Reflection of Values

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke recently at Cal State Stanislaus highlighting his workforce initiatives and used the opportunity to introduce his 2025-2026 budget… State budgets are exceptionally complex documents full of granular data but a birds-eye view of spending places our tax dollars in a number of buckets of broad spending ...
Blog

State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Budget Will Impact California's Tax Burden

The Newsom Budget on Taxes: Yes, Governor, California Is a High Tax State

California imposes the highest top marginal state income tax rate and one of the highest state and local sales tax rates in the country. It is simply illogical to claim that a state with the highest income tax rate and a very high state and local sales tax rates is ...
Blog

State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Transportation Budget Furthers the "Train to Nowhere"

The Newsom Transportation Budget: Newsom Continues to Embrace Costly, Unrealistic State Bullet Train

Progress. The California high-speed rail project has made progress. If progress can be defined as finally laying the first track for a bullet train that is at least a couple of decades behind schedule. Hard to put any faith, though, in the promises and bragging when the HSR is running ...
California

Newsom promises efficient and accountable state budget, delivers bloated and ineffective spending plan

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday unveiled the initial details of his $322.2 billion state budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Based on his presentation, Californians should be worried. He claims that his budget will promote an “efficient and leaner” government, yet his plan is neither. The Newsom budget would ...
California

Newsom’s wrongheaded special session is a misuse of gubernatorial power

Gov. Newsom’s call on December 2 for a mere $25 million fund for the Department of Justice and other agencies to prepare for potential litigation against the Trump administration underscores that the special session is for show, not substance. In any event, there was no need to call a special ...
California

Learn more about how expensive and complications reparations would be

Three Questions That Probably Doom California’s Reparations Push

As California seriously debates the logic of paying reparations to black Americans, it is important to review the implausibility of a reparations plan. Although I would likely accept payment should money ever actually be offered (ungallant to refuse, really), reparations are a notably bad idea. As I noted in a ...
Blog

The Prop 47 Budgetary Shell Game – Who you Gonna Believe? Them, or your Lying Eyes?

In 2014, Californians voted overwhelmingly to pass Proposition 47, known by its supporters title the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.” Prop 47’s advocates made a strong case, promising that both crime and incarceration rates would decline. At the same time, supporters argued that “massive” savings from ending the practice of ...
Blog

Read the latest on California's homeless crisis

Newsom’s Veto a Strange Way to Show Support for “Transparency and Accountability”

Assembly Bill 2570, by Asm. Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, would have required state officials to prepare an annual audit  evaluating the effectiveness of the state’s primary homeless grant program – the Homeless, Housing, Assistance and Prevention program. The bill would require the audit to be included in an annual report department ...
Blog

Spending Watch: More Debt Is More Taxes

As a recent Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll confirms, this approach is out of step with “most Californians (56%) [who] would prefer to pay lower taxes and have a state government that provides fewer services”. With respect to solving the current budget crisis, the poll found that “fewer ...
Blog

State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Education Budget Will Impact You

The Newsom Education Budget: No Bang for the Buck

In the 2019-20 budget–Newsom’s first enacted budget–California spent $103 billion in state, local, and federal funds for education, which translated to $17,423 per pupil. In the governor’s new proposed budget, total education spending comes in at a whopping $137 billion, which pencils out to $24,764 per pupil. All this added ...
Commentary

State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Public Safety Budget Will Impact You

The Newsom Public Safety Budget: Budgets are a Reflection of Values

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke recently at Cal State Stanislaus highlighting his workforce initiatives and used the opportunity to introduce his 2025-2026 budget… State budgets are exceptionally complex documents full of granular data but a birds-eye view of spending places our tax dollars in a number of buckets of broad spending ...
Blog

State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Budget Will Impact California's Tax Burden

The Newsom Budget on Taxes: Yes, Governor, California Is a High Tax State

California imposes the highest top marginal state income tax rate and one of the highest state and local sales tax rates in the country. It is simply illogical to claim that a state with the highest income tax rate and a very high state and local sales tax rates is ...
Blog

State Budget Week - Learn how the Newsom Transportation Budget Furthers the "Train to Nowhere"

The Newsom Transportation Budget: Newsom Continues to Embrace Costly, Unrealistic State Bullet Train

Progress. The California high-speed rail project has made progress. If progress can be defined as finally laying the first track for a bullet train that is at least a couple of decades behind schedule. Hard to put any faith, though, in the promises and bragging when the HSR is running ...
California

Newsom promises efficient and accountable state budget, delivers bloated and ineffective spending plan

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday unveiled the initial details of his $322.2 billion state budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Based on his presentation, Californians should be worried. He claims that his budget will promote an “efficient and leaner” government, yet his plan is neither. The Newsom budget would ...
California

Newsom’s wrongheaded special session is a misuse of gubernatorial power

Gov. Newsom’s call on December 2 for a mere $25 million fund for the Department of Justice and other agencies to prepare for potential litigation against the Trump administration underscores that the special session is for show, not substance. In any event, there was no need to call a special ...
California

Learn more about how expensive and complications reparations would be

Three Questions That Probably Doom California’s Reparations Push

As California seriously debates the logic of paying reparations to black Americans, it is important to review the implausibility of a reparations plan. Although I would likely accept payment should money ever actually be offered (ungallant to refuse, really), reparations are a notably bad idea. As I noted in a ...
Blog

The Prop 47 Budgetary Shell Game – Who you Gonna Believe? Them, or your Lying Eyes?

In 2014, Californians voted overwhelmingly to pass Proposition 47, known by its supporters title the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.” Prop 47’s advocates made a strong case, promising that both crime and incarceration rates would decline. At the same time, supporters argued that “massive” savings from ending the practice of ...
Blog

Read the latest on California's homeless crisis

Newsom’s Veto a Strange Way to Show Support for “Transparency and Accountability”

Assembly Bill 2570, by Asm. Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, would have required state officials to prepare an annual audit  evaluating the effectiveness of the state’s primary homeless grant program – the Homeless, Housing, Assistance and Prevention program. The bill would require the audit to be included in an annual report department ...
Blog

Spending Watch: More Debt Is More Taxes

As a recent Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll confirms, this approach is out of step with “most Californians (56%) [who] would prefer to pay lower taxes and have a state government that provides fewer services”. With respect to solving the current budget crisis, the poll found that “fewer ...
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