Californians Already Pay an Oil Severance Tax – to Other States
In promoting an oil severance tax in California, proponents often cite the fact that other oil producing states have such a tax. However, what is not often acknowledged is who pays that tax. It can be argued, as this article in Bloomberg Business Week does, that the tax in some of those oil severance tax states […]
Main Street Menace of the Week: Senate Bill 1021 (Wolk)
While the legislature is in session, the National Federation of Independent Business/California will be profiling anti-small business bills and initiatives and the adverse effect they would have on California’s job creators. This is the third column of the 2014 series. This week, small business owners will arrive in Sacramento as part of NFIB/California’s 6th Annual […]
Concentrated Wealth or Democracy, but Not Both
In many uncomfortable ways, American politics now resemble those that arose late in the Roman Republic. As wealth and land ownership concentrated in few hands, a state built on the discipline of soldiers who tended their own farms became ever more dominated by fractious oligarchs. As property consolidated into huge slave-owning estates, more citizens became landless […]
Opposition Swarms Against Splitting California
Like hornets rising from a disturbed nest, opposition is swarming against venture capitalist Tim Draper’s proposed initiative to split dysfunctional California into six states, a couple of which might turn out functional. The Chronicle reports: “Steven Maviglio, a Democratic consultant, and Joe Rodota, a fixture in GOP politics, have formed OneCalifornia, a committee that will […]