Prop. 56: Tax ’Em If You Got ’Em

You’re probably something like me: a professional who doesn’t smoke tobacco. Although in my case, I puff an occasional stogie, maybe once every two months. So if Proposition 56 passes in November, increasing tobacco taxes $2 a pack, it’s one of the few taxes that wouldn’t phase my personal bank account. And it wouldn’t affect […]

Profits by Billionaires in China. Invested in California.

Note: I am not a real estate investment advisor. Nor do I play one on TV. California and China are symbiotic economically in more was that the etching on the back of your iPhone: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” Despite a minor fad for Hayek, China still has really shaky property rights. […]

Meg Being Meg

One of the more humorous times I’ve enjoyed in my 41 years in journalism was Meg Whitman blowing $180 million in her 2010 run for governor against Jerry Brown. For that she got 40.9 percent of the vote, just above the 40.0 percent Neal Kashkari got in 2014 spending almost nothing. I wrote about her […]

Why is CalPERS Underperforming?

The biggest fiscal challenge facing California remains underfunded pensions. Ed Mendel’s Calpensions.com site featured a great chart showing how CalPERS’ current 75 percent level of funding has failed to repeat two previous restorations of value to above 100 percent. That article comes shortly after the fund reported its lowest gains since the Great Recession. Why […]

Rest of World Ignoring Gov. Brown, Calif. on Greenhouse Gases

“We will get it one way or another,” Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters in Philadelphia about spreading California’s climate policies across the world. The quote was in the Los Angeles Times, which reported, “Brown is facing political headwinds to protect California’s cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of its efforts to battle global warming.” And the paper reported on […]

Harris-Sanchez’ Top Two Disaster

The Top Two Primary System voters enacted in 2010 with Proposition 14 has flopped in the race to replace Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate. The official summary that year was written by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who supported Prop. 14, and read, “Encourages increased participation in elections for congressional, legislative, and statewide offices by […]

Analysis: Which Proposed Bills Help, Hinder, Small Businesses

Among the approximately 2,000 bills considered in the California Legislature this year, many affect small businesses. Here’s the analysis of four by the National Federation of Independent Business California: Assembly Bill 23 and Senate Bill 5, the Affordable Gas Tax for Families Act. The bills are sponsored, respectively, by Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno; and state Sen. Andy Vidak, […]

Fixing the Legislative Process

Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor in the 19th Century, never visited California. But he could have had the state Legislature in mind when he said, “Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.” Observers on all sides of the political spectrum agree the legislative process in the Golden […]

CA Manufacturing Rises — A Little

California’s hard-hit manufacturing sector is coming back, although not as much as the rest of the country. The Great Recession sliced off 18.5 percent of state manufacturing jobs. After that, from 2011 to 2014, “manufacturing employment has hovered around 12.5 million,” reported the Sacramento Bee. “There certainly are pockets of success,” Gino DiCarlo told CalWatchdog.com; he’s […]

LAO Report Could Spur School Facilities Reform

A new report by California Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor puts school facilities funding at the head of the class. Among other points, “The 2015-16 Budget: Rethinking How the State Funds School Facilities” pushes the idea that facilities funding should more closely follow each student. Doing so would change the system from its current dependence on local variations largely […]