CA Jobs Growth Continues — With Caution Signal
California continues to enjoy fairly strong jobs growth — but new data released today (not yet online) by the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University suggest caution may be warranted moving forward. The report’s headline: “California unemployment indicator declines.” The California Employment Indicator declined to 121.6 in the first quarter of 2015 […]
Did Tax Rise Help CA, Tax Cuts Hurt KS?
Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re in California, where the winter weather is in the 70s and the high taxes are imposed by the Great and Powerful Oz. Writing in Al Jazerra, David Cay Johnston said Kansas’ tax cuts hurt it, while California was helped by its $7 billion in tax […]
New Arthur Laffer Book Details Reagan Prosperity Recipe
If you have a great recipe, keep using it. Don’t be chicken. Just ask Col. Sanders. Why then don’t Republican candidates just follow Ronald Reagan’s successful economic recipe from the 1980s? Cut taxes; in his case, from the top income tax rate of 70 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1988. Keep money stable […]
CA Supreme Court ‘All Aboard’ For High-Speed Rail
All aboooooard! In what probably is the last train stop of opposition to California’s high-speed rail project, today the California Supreme Court refused to hear a case that could have stopped it. The case, by Kings County and two local landowners whose property would be bulldozed for the project, objected that the Legislature had altered the […]
Tax Subsidies Hurting California
You might think individual tax subsidies, such as the film credit for Hollywood that just was tripled to $330 million, would help California. After all, they cut the taxes of some companies. Certainly, they help those individual companies. But unless spending is cut to pay for it — which never happens — other businesses have to […]
A Voting Lottery?
Los Angeles is considering turning voting into a lottery. Last year’s mayoral election saw a turnout of just 25 percent. The idea is to hold out the potential of winning a cash prize for showing up to do one’s civic duty. But why should we care about people who don’t care about voting, or are […]
Opposition Swarms Against Splitting California
Like hornets rising from a disturbed nest, opposition is swarming against venture capitalist Tim Draper’s proposed initiative to split dysfunctional California into six states, a couple of which might turn out functional. The Chronicle reports: “Steven Maviglio, a Democratic consultant, and Joe Rodota, a fixture in GOP politics, have formed OneCalifornia, a committee that will […]
CA Suffers Highest Percentage of Poor
This kind of puts a kink in Gov. Jerry Brown’s insistence that “California is back.” According to a new study by the U.S. Census Bureau, when housing is factored in, California has the nation’s highest poverty rate, at 23.8 percent. It’s higher than Mississippi, Alabama, West Virgina and other states we think of as poor. […]
Middle Class Can’t Afford California
Politicians of both parties like to boast how they work for the “middle class.” Well, there isn’t much of a middle class left in California, at least along the coastal areas. According to data provided by Trulia, the three least affordable areas in America are San Francisco, where just 14 percent of homes are affordable […]
CA Take Note: Detroit Bankruptcy Could Slash Pensions
Detroit declared bankruptcy today. For California, here are the takeaways from the Detroit News report: “A bankruptcy judge could trump the state constitution by slashing retiree pensions, ripping up contracts and paying creditors roughly a dime on the dollar for unsecured claims worth $11.45 billion.” That’s because the bankruptcy will be heard in a federal […]