From the Department of Upside-Down Logic
Sometimes it’s hard to keep your story straight. Like daffodils at Spring, legislators rise every year to wag their fingers at the price of gasoline. First to the bar this year is Senator Mark Leno, who proposes legislation to create a bureaucracy to investigate “whether fuel price manipulation is occurring” by “comparing real time prices […]
State Leaders Hit the Road for California
With two years of dealing with nothing but the broken state budget behind him, for now, Governor Brown at long last has shifted his attention to economic development. Leading a small army of state bureaucrats and business leaders on a long march through China, the Governor has declared his single focus is on economic issues: […]
Innovation in Tax Increases
Stealth taxes have been part and parcel of public finance in Sacramento ever since Proposition 13 required a two-thirds legislative vote to raise new taxes. Hidden taxes and dubious fees became so rampant that voters adopted Proposition 26 in 2010 to bring transparency and accountability to legislative (and local government) revenue raising. Prop 26 simply […]
Improving on Recent Regulatory Reform
Yesterday I presented testimony to the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review regarding the implementation of legislative regulatory reforms enacted in 2011. Following are excerpts from that testimony. This morning I would like to spend just a few minutes talking about SB 617 and regulatory reform efforts in a historical context, the advantage of […]
Gov. Brown Endorses Enterprise Zones
OK, maybe not by his words – but certainly by his deeds. At his premier policy address earlier this year, Governor Brown touted the business retention and expansion efforts by his GO-Biz office (“…directly assisted more than 5,000 companies this past year”), but then claimed the state’s Enterprise Zone Program is “not working.” His appointees […]
Tax Windfall or Not – State Leaders should Prepare a “Rainy Day” Fund.
California taxpayers paid $5 billion more in taxes in January than state officials anticipated. So is this an early sign of a robust economic recovery, or simply taxpayers paying in advance of when the bean-counters expected? I lean toward the latter, since both tax changes and tax uncertainty have been far more apparent than widespread […]
Health Insurance Rate Shock Looms for California Consumers
State-run health insurance exchanges are one of the most important developments from the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). True to form, California was an early adopter of insurance exchanges, approving legislation in 2010. Called “Covered California,” the exchange is up-and-running with the help of federal grants and state administration support. California has also opted in […]
The Biggest Obstacle to Increasing School Spending
It’s almost cliché to declare that California spends more on K-12 education than any other single budget program. Public schools are obviously a top priority for increased state funding and for the attention of state policy makers. But schools aren’t the most richly-funded government function. That distinction goes to Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for […]
Reminder from the Golden Goose
Economic recovery means not just more income tax revenue, it also means concentrating even more the share of taxes on upper income taxpayers – even before last year’s Proposition 30 tax increase. According to recently-released, but still dated, statistics from Franchise Tax Board, state income tax filers with more than $200,000 adjusted gross income increased […]
Ten Trends to Watch
California politics and governance enter a new era in 2013. The state’s economy is finally recovering and the political landscape has been reseeded. Here, in no particular order, are ten stories or trends to watch this year: 1. Economic recovery in the interior. The coast is getting healthier, from San Diego to the Bay Area. […]