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.
The Vanishing Line-Item Veto
California officially has a budget for the coming fiscal year. The state plans to spend $156 billion, about 7.5% more than last year.
As in most other states, in California the governor has line-item veto power. After the budget passes, he can remove or reduce individual provisions without the legislature’s approval. That’s a lot of potential authority over the budget.
What did Jerry Brown do with such tremendous power? Not much. He removed or reduced only 10 budget items, cutting a total of $37.9 million. In the context of a $156 billion budget, that’s a rounding error. (more…)
Hiding in Plain Sight: the Labor Pool at our Doorstep.
In a recent article on my company, Emerge Digital Group, Michael Bernick talked about an innovative hiring model we inadvertently created in building our business.
Given our rapid growth and lack of capital we were essentially forced into hiring outside the traditional Silicon Valley model of poaching the best candidates from competitors. Instead, we hired workers from other industries, the unemployed or underemployed, interns, really anybody we could get our hands on. What started as a one-off became an almost institutionalized practice of hiring the hungriest and scrappiest people who would do anything to get ahead.
The result? Transformation. They transformed us, we transformed them. I came to believe that one’s ambition and drive are equally if not more important as one’s credentials, degrees, or supposed “smarts”. Why? Because we have real data on the results. (more…)
Technology Pulls Back the Political Curtain
When I left the legislature 18 months ago, I confess I left feeling unsatisfied. I felt this way for conflicting reasons. On one hand, my experience behind the curtain gave me such insight, clarity and passion about where I wanted to focus my policy and reform efforts. But at the same time, the pointless institutional and partisan barriers to getting things done continually frustrated me.
Like most former electeds, I wrestled with the question of whether to find another office to run for in order to get back into the system and back in the fight. But I recognized that to accomplish the reforms I am most passionate about, I had to chart a different course because those who operate within the system must largely live under the rules of the system.
Real reform, the kind that I am passionate about, is about disrupting that status quo and transforming how government fundamentally operates. (more…)
‘Job Killer’ Bill Rightly Rejected
The Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee did the right thing by rejecting an unfair, discriminatory split roll bill that would have raised rents and costs for all businesses, especially small businesses.
SB 1021 (Wolk) sought to allow a school district to impose a parcel tax on property used for commercial purposes as opposed to residential properties. Similarly, the bill would have allowed a school district to impose a parcel tax solely on properties that exceed a certain square footage so as to only include commercial property and exclude residential property for higher tax rates.
SB 1021 sought to re-define the term “special taxes that apply uniformly” to mean special taxes that may be applied discriminatorily and unfairly. (more…)
‘Sharing’ Companies Promise to Transform Everything but They Could Turn California Into a Battleground
I have learned the hard way, as father to three small boys, that sharing causes conflict. Ask humans to play with the same toy at the same time, and it won’t take long for a fight to break out. The smart move is to find duplicates of that toy or, if that’s impossible, to urge interested parties to “take turns.”
That’s one reason why I’m afraid that the much-celebrated “sharing economy”—the catch-all name for “peer-to-peer” apps and services that use information technology to connect people for the purposes of distributing, sharing, and reusing goods and services—is likely to produce more fights than profits. And since California is a center of many of the most significant “sharing” companies, our state could be embroiled for years to come in political, legal, commercial, and environmental battles related to sharing. (more…)
California’s Tax-Cutting Legislature?
Drop by the California State Capitol at just the right moment and you might be surprised to hear liberal legislators sounding like tax-cutting conservatives.
In support of a multi-million dollar tax cut for business, one liberal lawmaker argues, “We need to send a message to New York… and other states competing for our jobs and say, ‘It stops here.’”
Adds another: “We can’t afford to let any more jobs abandon our state.”
One more chimes in: “Right now we’re getting our lunch handed to us by these other states.” (more…)