California’s Party of Yes: The GOP
You know what they say about conventional wisdom. Right or wrong, conventional wisdom, like cement, hardens quickly. Once molded into public opinion, it takes a lot of chipping away to break that mold. The conventional wisdom, largely wrong, among Californians was that Republicans in state government were obstructionists. The Party who wouldn’t compromise. The Party […]
Prop 29: Another Grab for Dollars with No Accountability to Taxpayers
April 17 was the deadline of another tax filing season, but it was just the start of the Democrats’ 2012 tax initiative season. In fact, in just a month, voters must take a stand against and defeat the first round of this year’s tax hike measures: Proposition 29. Prop. 29, like many other tax increases […]
Budget Hearing Reveals State Government’s Own Laws Block Common-Sense Savings
At a hearing in late April, the subcommittee that reviews state budget expenditures for the internal administration of state and local government operations approved a 20 percent rate increase for the cost of printing voter information guides and other materials. This will cost the state more than a million dollars above the Secretary of State’s […]
Tax Hikes Without a Vote? A Back Door to New Revenue
Crossposted on Capitol Weekly There’s plenty of reasons for progressives to hate California Forward’s do-gooder “government reform” ballot measure that may yet find its way toward appearing on the November ballot. It contains a built-in spending cap, upsets the balance of power between the Legislature and the Governor, and diverts state-generated revenue from the general […]
We’re All Temps Now: How the Job World Shifted in California
This essay first appeared earlier this week in Zocalo Public Square. California Used To Embody Stable, Middle-Class Living. It Was a Brief Interlude. The photo below was taken at the Lockheed Aircraft Company Christmas Party in Burbank in 1950. The smiling Lockheed workers are receiving awards in honor of their fifth anniversaries at the company, […]