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.
Projected State Budget Surpluses Could Disrupt Tax Initiatives
The budget projections offered by the Legislative Analyst last week could throw a monkey wrench into the plans of those who are seeking tax increases on the 2014 ballot.
The LAO projected a budget surplus of $5.6 billion dollars for the budget year ending in 2015 scaling up to $10 billion a couple of years later, assuming no economic dip or wild spending plans out of the legislature. The surplus would be on top of new money for many budget items, especially education.
At a Milken Institute event last Thursday, Governor Jerry Brown cautioned against depleting the surplus.
Deciphering Public Pension Fund Investment Fee Reports
Recently there has been a good deal of press about public pension funds moving $600 billion to “alternative investments” managed by hedge funds and private equity funds. Some commentators, such as Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone and David Sirota of Salon, criticize alternative investments as transfers of wealth to Wall Street because alternative investment managers charge high fees. But the public pension fund managers making those allocations to alternative investments and agreeing to pay those fees say alternative investments produce greater returns than do other investments, even after paying big fees. Not everyone believes them.
It’s easy to understand the cynicism. Alternative investment management fees are big, and many reports by public pension funds about alternative investments are at best confusing and at worst misleading. But there are some good models out there.
Fixing DC: California’s Innovations Can Help
Right now, it is hard to imagine Congress transforming into a productive bipartisan institution. But the Legislature in California has demonstrated the possibility of such a transformation. In doing so, it exemplifies the kind of governance innovations that the United States badly needs today.
Over the course of a generation, governance in California mutated into a vitriolic stalemates. While the state grew in population and diversity, decision-making concentrated in the state Capitol in Sacramento. Eventually, narrow interest groups and their allied party leaders dominated the governing process. The electoral system – with gerrymandered districts and thus a complete focus on the primaries – encouraged intransigence and discouraged compromise.
Small Business and Self-Employed Hurt by Administration’s Policies
Obamacare’s first set of victims was predictable: the self-employed and owners of small businesses. Since the bungled launch of the health insurance enrollment system, hundreds of thousands of self-insured people have either had their policies revoked or may find themselves in that situation in the coming months. More than 10 million self-insured people, many of them self-employed, could meet a similar fate.
Unlike large companies or labor unions, which have sought to delay or duck implementing the Affordable Care Act, what could be called the yeoman class lacks the political might to make much of a dent in Washington policies. Indeed, in the Obama era, with its emphasis on top-down solutions and Chicago-style brokering, Americans who work for themselves probably are more marginalized today than at any time in recent memory.
Memories of November 22, 1963 and Beyond
The principal of my combined high school/junior high school in Massachusetts came on the school intercom the last school period to inform us President Kennedy had been shot. I was in the school library.
Shortly thereafter walking to the bus to go home, I came across a student I can only brand the “class clown” and he said the president was dead. I did not know whether to believe him or not.
During the ride home, probably for the only time in my life, I was on a school bus full of students where you could hear a pin drop.
A Weekend in November
I had looked forward to that Friday because there was a political lunch that day that would be a break from my studies at Georgetown University. The speaker was California Congressman James Roosevelt, and I remember asking him a question, though I cannot remember what the question was. Roosevelt was the son of the last president to die in office, and about the time I was asking that question, the current president was dying of an assassin’s bullet in Dallas. It was November 22, 1963.
After the luncheon I headed to my job as an intern in the office of a congressman from Seattle. As I walked to the Cannon House Office Building, someone yelled from his car that the president had been shot. I thought that was a tasteless joke. At the entrance to the House building there were always two guards; they were not really there for security, but to assist people visiting members of Congress. The look on their faces told me something was really bad.