Paying for single-payer: Put up or move on
Since the best feature of the Healthy California Act is that all health care will be free, it seems churlish to suggest that someone must pay for something. Sadly, even after asserting more than $70 billion in new savings from efficiencies that highly motivated private providers and government regulators have not achieved, and after assuming that federal […]
California Budget Lives in the Matrix
Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic Legislature continue taking the Blue Pill over the state’s economy and the budget they’re finalizing this week. It’s for the fiscal 2017-18 budget, which begins on July 1. They’re living in the Matrix, not the Real World. Although Brown has warned, weakly, of impending budget difficulties, his budget still spends way too much should […]
State Must Reform BOE but Preserve Key Taxpayer Protections
The California State Board of Equalization (BOE) needs to be reformed. The five-member, elected constitutional body is responsible for administration of sales tax, business taxes and fees, state-assessed property tax, and hearing income tax cases. A recent audit has uncovered administrative and operational missteps, which have been well documented in the press. I applaud the […]
Proposals for ADA Litigation Reform
Despite several statutory changes enacted over the past several years, including one by the former Democratic Senate Leader, there continues to be numerous filings of state lawsuits for construction-related violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). There has to be significant reforms to limit these lawsuits to only the legitimate ADA violations that actually […]
California’s Democratic Lawmakers Shouldn’t Fear Primary Threats Over Single-Payer
Backers of the single-payer health care legislation, Senate Bill 562, have made it clear in trying to bully state lawmakers that if they don’t support their bill, they’ll run candidates against them in next June’s primaries. Assembly Democrats should call their bluff. Because the threat of knocking off incumbent lawmakers with single-payer as a litmus […]
Stacking the Deck on Elections
A budget bill has been introduced that would lengthen the time to qualify recall elections. One might say this bill came out of the blue—blue California, that is. Changing election rules to benefit their positions is becoming a habit with Democrats in the legislature. The presumed object of the bill, SB 96, is to forestall […]
Brown Does the Lord’s Work on Prop 56
In California, the act of trying to make an inflexible ballot initiative a little more flexible is the Lord’s work. Which brings me to the fight over Prop 56. When you voted on that measure, you might have thought you were casting a ballot merely over the raising of taxes on tobacco. But, no. As […]
Board of Equalization Overhaul Hurts Taxpayers
Public trust in government is eroded every time non-budgetary policy changes are rammed through the Legislature under the cover of the state budget process. Proposed budget trailer bills (AB 102 and SB 86) amount to untested structural changes that will hinder the Board of Equalization’s ability to continue collecting one-third of the state’s annual revenue. […]
Why State Tax Deduction Will Stand
Articles and accounts about the possibility of federal tax reform typically conclude with this: Californians appear poised to get thumped. More than anyone else in the country. Indeed, if you’ve read such accounts about looming tax changes, you probably sighed and sorrowfully agreed that it seems logical, inevitable, close to absolute certitude that Californians, and […]