California’s War on the Emerging Generation
It should be the obligation of older citizens to try to improve the prospects for their successors. But, here in California, as seen in a new report issued by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, we seem to have adopted an agenda designed to make things tougher for them. Millennials everywhere face many challenges. […]
Prepaying on CalPERS Massive Unfunded Liabilities
Governor Brown wants to prepay the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) with $6 billion beyond what most had expected. The source of the funds is the Surplus Money Investment Fund. Don’t ask me why a state with a $169 billion unrestricted net deficit has some $50 billion in a low interest bearing account with […]
One simple trick for California’s carbon diet: a robust cap-and-trade system
Almost every January 1st I set a personal goal for weight loss. That’s easy. The hard part comes the following 364 days while I try different strategies to shed the pounds. On January 1, 2021, California must begin implementation of its ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below the 2020 levels. This is the equivalent of […]
AB 5—For Business, the Worst Bill of the Year?
The only problem with holding a contest to decide the worst bill introduced in the Legislature this year is: How do you pick just one? Well, I have a contender for you! AB 5, authored by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher (D-San Diego) and Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) prohibits California businesses with as few as 10 […]
Brown Makes Environmental Justice Pitch to Get Two-Thirds Vote for Cap-n-Trade
At the budget revision press conference last week, Gov. Jerry Brown tried to assuage Democratic lawmakers over costs on his cap-and-trade extension by arguing for environmental justice so as to assure a two-thirds vote for the plan. Brown is aware that some Democrats in low-income areas are wary of supporting legislation that will increase costs […]
A State Takeover of Housing
All the debate about how to address California’s massive housing shortage is obscuring the big picture: a state takeover of local housing policy has begun. That’s the real import of the more than 100 bills that have been introduced in the legislature to change housing policy in various ways. None of the current proposals is […]
State budget more vulnerable than ever to stock market decline
Take a look at California’s General Fund revenues over the last twenty years: Schedule 2, 2017–18 Governor’s Revised Budget Zero in on 2000-03. Notice how revenues peaked at $76 billion in 2000 and then fell below that level for three years. Aggregate revenues over those three years fell $30 billion short of the revenues the state would’ve collected had they continued […]
How California Business Leaders can solve the Mental Illness Crisis
In spite of spending over $1.5 billion a year in Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) funds, mentally ill homeless camps are taking over downtowns, four times as many Californians with mental illness are incarcerated as hospitalized, and even educated and caring moms can’t get care for seriously mentally ill loved ones. Why is that? Wasn’t […]
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 […]