Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye
With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages.
Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down.
Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.
On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.
F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!). We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.
Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey. The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.
Wage Creep
Regardless of where you stand on the living-wage issue in Los Angeles, you’ve got to admit this: Living-wage proponents have a terrific strategy.
The eventual goal of labor interests is to impose a citywide living wage (which now stands at more than $15 an hour, almost double the minimum wage). But if they push for that aggressively and quickly, they risk coming off as overreaching and could lose, perhaps at the ballot box. Instead, they’ve devised a clever strategy of incrementalism.
First, labor interests got their allies on the Los Angeles City Council in 2006 to pass an ordinance forcing the hotels on Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport to pay their workers a living wage. Their rationale: Those hotels benefit greatly by being near the airport, a city-owned facility. Therefore, the city had the right to impose a living-wage rate.
An Historic Republican Win in San Diego
Better get to know Kevin Faulconer. He is now the highest ranking Republican elected official in California and the most important urban Republican in America. Not bad for a guy who was hardly known at all just a week ago.
Faulconer, a San Diego city councilman, was elected as the city’s mayor on Tuesday, making San Diego the largest city in America with a Republican mayor.
The election was called after the resignation of disgraced Democratic Mayor Bob Filner. Electing a Republican as mayor of San Diego ordinarily would not be big news; until Filner’s election in 2012, San Diego had a series of centrist pro-business Republican mayors, reflective of the moderately conservative politics of that city. Faulconer, is a protégé of the last GOP mayor, the popular Jerry Sanders who left office in 2012.
Moving ‘The Tonight Show’ to New York Robs Our State of Its Biggest Stage
It’s dangerous for a people to declare one man their enemy and hunt him down. It’s unwise for a state to scapegoat one man for its problems.
Nevertheless, I think California should make an exception and declare war on Jimmy Fallon.
Yes, I know. The comedian who is taking over The Tonight Show next week is cute and cuddly and funny. Yes, he has a combination of musical chops and comic timing that make him a consummate entertainer. And yes, I find his impression of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb irresistible.
None of this, however, absolves him of the great crime he has committed against our state: relocating The Tonight Show from the San Fernando Valley city of Burbank to New York City.
Is California Comfortable With Manufacturing Investment Levels?
California’s economy is improving. Our unemployment rate is down two percentage points over the last year and our state revenue growth has, for the first time in a while, allowed the Governor to project a small surplus in 2013.
Still California has far too many workers either unemployed or underemployed. The state currently has the second largest percentage of underemployed at 18.3 percent. A big reason is that we continues to lag the country in manufacturing employment growth and in the ever-important manufacturing investment trend. In the first three quarters of 2013, California was dead last among all states in per capita manufacturing investments at 1.17 new or expanded facilities per one million people. Even worse, the state only reeled in 1.97 percent of the nation’s expansions and new sites.
Art For The Economy’s Sake
Creativity is California’s not-so-secret weapon. Seemingly against all odds, the Golden State’s economy has made a big comeback from the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Employment has rebounded, the State’s fiscal picture has brightened and entrepreneurship is thriving. Creativity and innovation have been the driving forces behind much of this newly regained economic vitality. The folks in Sacramento would do well to remember this as they sort out the State’s budget priorities.
This is particularly true when it comes to funding for the arts and arts education. These programs are often the first to be cut and the last to be restored. Too often in the political arena, arts and culture are looked at as luxuries and of interest only to elites. Nothing could be more wrong-headed.
How Does “Zero-point-Eight at Sixty-Eight” Sound for a Pension Plan?
The economy is picking up steam. State, city and county employees have willingly accepted millions upon millions of dollars in cuts to their pensions. California’s largest pension fund has recouped every single investment penny it lost from the Great Recession. So I thought perhaps California police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other public employees could finally exhale. I hoped we could finally enjoy relief from daily attacks for the modest pensions we count on for retirement security. Buddy Magor, Peace Officers Research Association of California
Public CEO, January 27, 2014, “Stop Blaming Public Employee Pensions for Problems”
Whether or not the economy is “picking up steam” at a rate sufficient to rescue California’s financially challenged public sector pension funds is a debate that is by no means over. But let’s consider Mr. Magor’s other point regarding the “modest pensions we count on for retirement security.”