LA City Attorney Fails to Make Case with Business Community
Mike Feuer had a nice chance to buff up his somewhat-tarnished relationship with the local business community a couple of weeks ago. Instead, he blew it. Feuer, the Los Angeles city attorney who seems more eager to sue businesses than help them, came out to the Van Nuys offices of the Valley Industry and Commerce […]
Funding Medi-Cal by Initiatives
Medi-Cal spending has exploded and along with the state obligated to take over part of the federal health care funding next year, hospitals and health care providers are scrambling to look for new sources of money. In California, that means a trip to the ballot box and revenue raising initiatives. Despite a clear need to […]
Do Hollywood Tax Breaks Undermine the Case for Ballot Tax Hikes?
So the state of California has enough tax money to give $18 million to a Disney production of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Great book, hopefully a great movie, and I’m looking forward to seeing it. But it begs a question: if California has enough money to throw millions at a company like Disney, why exactly […]
California: The Economics Of Delusion
In Sacramento, and much of the media, California is enjoying a “comeback” that puts a lie to the argument that regulations and high taxes actually matter. The hero of this recovery, Gov. Jerry Brown, in Bill Maher’s assessment, “took a broken state and fixed it.” Yet, if you look at the long-term employment trends, housing […]
Controller Dead Wrong on Property Taxes
California’s State Controller, Betty Yee, normally displays a measured, albeit liberal, view of California fiscal affairs. While viewed as reasonably competent and not given to hyperbole, her recent statement in a local government blog was one she must have known to be flat wrong. The blog, called County Voice, is disseminated by the California State Association […]
Wishful Thinking about California’s Business Friendliness
“One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.” – Aristotle Consider the following scenario: You’re having a discussion with an acquaintance on the quality of California’s roads and highways. You point out that California is below average […]
Transparent Government is In Your Hands: Yes on Proposition 54
Of the 24 ballot measures on the Los Angeles ballot November ballot, the least controversial is Proposition 54, the California Transparency Act, unless, of course, you are a Sacramento insider who likes the cover of the dead of night. This initiated Constitutional amendment will prohibit the State Legislature from “passing any bill unless it has […]
A Full Plate Of Higher Taxes Awaits LA Voters This Fall
Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 24 this year, but for politicians in Los Angeles, turkey day isTuesday, Nov. 8. That’s when they will attempt to carve up taxpayers with at least four proposed tax increases – a sales tax hike and three measures that would increase property taxes. It’s no coincidence that these tax-hike proposals are all on […]
Where’s the Passion for CEQA Reform?
The roots of California’s environmental regulations can be traced back to 1884. That’s the year a federal judge ordered miners to stop using water cannons to batter the Sierra hillsides to separate gold from the soil and rock, but also left behind a broken and ugly landscape. The process, called hydraulic mining, had devastating effects. […]