Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye
With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages.
Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down.
Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.
On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.
F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!). We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.
Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey. The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.
Politics Present and Past
On Tuesday, I had an opportunity to listen to someone running for statewide office in California today and a short time later spend time with someone who helped many candidates run for office decades ago, including one who won the highest office in the land. Ashley Swearengin is running for controller; Stu Spencer was the campaign manager who helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House.
Ashley Swearengin, mayor of Fresno and Republican candidate for state controller, told a Town Hall of Los Angeles meeting that her run for office was to challenge the status quo. She praised recent budgets in Sacramento to right the ship but said the current fiscal fix will not be sustainable.
The budget’s long-term problems, she said, are because of the state’s indebtedness and unfunded liabilities. As controller, Swearengin promised to create a comprehensive list of those debts and liabilities and make them transparent for all to see. (more…)
The California Conundrum
The original unabridged version of this analysis can be found on the Hoover Institution’s online journal, Defining Ideas. To view the survey, please see Hoover’s California blog, Eureka.
Jerry Brown is going to win on November 4. Based on the Hoover Institution’s recently released October 2014 Golden State Poll, Brown has a 17 point advantage over his Republican challenger, Businessman Neel Kashkari, among self-reported registered voters. But Brown can’t credit a so-called “California comeback” for his pending victory. Indeed, any sort of true economic comeback remains elusive.
As of September 2014, California’s unemployment rate is 1.4 points above the national rate and has the distinction of being the fourth worse rate in the nation. Even more troubling, California’s average four-year real GDP growth of 1.8% is about half the rate the state experienced coming out of the dot-com-bust recession. This has led to California’s job market underperforming by about 1 million jobs and the state still burdened with roughly 311,000 more people unemployed than at the start of recession. California requires more aggressive growth rates than was previously acceptable to boost its labor market adequately. Any one of these statistics alone should be troubling for an incumbent Governor heading into Election Day. (more…)
CA Business Climate Improves in One Ranking; Business Taxes Rank Near the Top in Another Listing
California business climate improved 15 places from 47th to 32nd place according to a ranking produced by CNBC business channel. The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) circulated the ranking which shows California is still 50th in the cost of doing business and 48th in business friendliness but leads the nation in Technology & Innovation and is tied for first in access to capital. The state’s economy ranked ninth among the states.
The California profile from CNBC is appears below.
Meanwhile, the Tax Foundation came out with it’s annual ranking of state tax climates and California ranks 48th. Only New York and New Jersey rank behind California.
California is 50th with the highest individual income tax, 34th in corporate tax and 42nd in sales tax. What probably keeps California from dropping to last place on the Tax Foundation’s Business Tax Climate Index is Proposition 13’s check on property taxes. California’s property taxes are ranked 14th among the states. (more…)
See Tax Increases, Think Pensions
Despite the ridicule heaped on bonuses offered public workers for simply doing their jobs – just one prime example: a librarian earning a bonus for helping members of the public find books – the California Retirement System (CalPERS) board last week made sure the bonuses added to salaries will be part of pension calculations.
While the exact cost to taxpayers is uncertain, the price tag for pensions because of this move is certain to go up. State and local governments have contributed four times to CalPERS what they contributed just a decade ago.
Local budgets are being eaten away by the pension and health care obligations. In the City of Los Angeles, for example, pensions costs took 3% of the city budget in 2002-3, it was eating 18% of the budget in 2012-13. (more…)
Will Prop 2 Produce More Debt?
Prop 2, while being advertised as a rainy day fund on TV, is actually a complicated formula that prioritizes debt payback. Gov. Brown and the measure’s other backers have said that by speeding up debt payback, it will reduce debt service and free up money in the long-term for investments.
If only that were true.
If the last few decades of California history are any guide, Prop 2 will be just another budget measure that created incentives for more debt.
How is that possible? Because of the following dynamic: as the California budget has been strangled and chained increasingly under various budget restrictions and formulas like Prop 2, local governments and interest groups, searching for ways to fund starved priorities, have turned more and more to bonds. Put it another way: the more you clamp down on spending, and take money that could be used to restore fundamental programs for reserves and debt payoffs, the more you force people to look at borrowing. (more…)
Forgetting the Latino Vote in 2014?
It’s only a week before Election Day and Governor Jerry Brown must be smiling. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Statewide Survey completed October 19 has Brown at 52 percent and Kashkari at 36 percent. The lackluster gubernatorial snoozefest has led to what will be an unprecedented shunning of the ballot box this November 4th.
However, who will occupy the Governor’s mansion for the next four years is not the only important thing to be settled next week.
First there are Propositions 1 and 2. If passed, they will at long last address California’s chronic water supply deficiencies and create a “rainy day” fund so that when the inevitable economic downturn comes there will be money available to protect vital services and education. (more…)