Can California Voters Recoup Excessive Pay, Benefits and Pensions from Current Public Employees?
California is broke. Every year we spend about $20 billion more than we take in, despite a constitutional requirement of balanced budgets. Our elected officials have tried every trick in the books to make it appear that they have not been acting unconstitutionally. They’ve “borrowed” from local governments and schools with phony promises to repay […]
Legislature Killed Two New Energy Taxes – And they Go Up Anyway
The California Legislature rejected two tax increases in 2011. Nevertheless, Californians will find their taxes increased by more than $1.1 billion in 2012-13. That’s right; the California Legislature does not have the last word on whether to raise certain taxes. It turns out that is the job of some powerful but obscure state boards. For […]
Rethinking Redevelopment
Barring a legislative miracle, the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn AB 27 has ended redevelopment as we know it in California. So rather than continuing a protracted legal and political struggle that ultimately only will do harm to California, why not use this development as an opportunity to rethink redevelopment so that it better […]
The Latest Data on Women and Men in the California Workforce
On January 3, 2012, “Work It” premiered nationwide on ABC television, as a midseason replacement, and attracted 6.2 million viewers. The two main characters are unemployed men who are told the Recession has led to greater job loss among men than women. They decide their best chance at employment is to masquerade as women, and […]
BizFed Launches Campaign to Urge Lawmakers to Stop Talking and Start Acting on Creating Jobs
With three years of economic stagnation, perennial budget crises, double-digit unemployment, entrenched partisanship and little substantive change coming from Sacramento lawmakers, the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed) launched a campaign yesterday that urges the state’s elected leaders to work together to implement a unified economic agenda. BizFed is a grassroots alliance of more than […]