Jerry Brown and Two Sides of the Tax Coin
At Gov. Jerry Brown’s May budget revision press conference, when asked about benefits that could come to California from a federal tax cut, Brown dismissed the idea that tax cuts would boost revenues, in the process dredging up nearly 40 year-old pejoratives for such an idea. “Voodoo economics” and a “riverboat gamble,” Brown declared. However, the […]
May Revise: Tax Increases Have Consequences
This is the 30th California state budget I’ve written about after I drove out here in 1987 to write editorials for the Orange County Register. Looking over the years, my theme has been the same: The state’s taxpayers can only bear so high a burden of taxing and spending. When that burden gets too large, […]
AB 359: A Quietly Lurking Threat to Prosecutors Throughout California
Some threats to public safety are obvious, such as Prop. 47 and Prop. 57. They were high-profile initiatives that received plenty of public attention and debate. Other efforts to change the criminal justice system appear to be well meaning, but contain consequences that reveal both a misunderstanding of how the system operates and are ill […]