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.
The “Top Two” System: Working Like It Should
California’s new “top two” election system is now having exactly the impact that its sponsors hoped it would. It is moderating the legislature. This can be seen in the remarkable success the business community enjoyed in this legislative session despite the fact that the Democrats enjoy a two-thirds majority in both houses.
At the beginning of the session, the California Chamber of Commerce pegged 38 bills – all by Democrats – as “job killers,” and pledged to stop them. Given the Democratic success at the polls in 2012 in which they won every marginal race for the legislature, in the process defeating several candidates backed by the Chamber, one might have expected an orgy of left wing legislation. Instead there was no lurch to the left in Sacramento, and indeed the Chamber managed to defeat 37 of the 38 job killer bills.
Damn The Evidence! The Top-Two Primary Is a Moderating Force Because Consultants and Media Say So!
This column is brought to you by the Department of I Can’t Believe We’re Still Having This Argument.
As you know, the state’s political-media-good-
In the past month, I’ve had phone calls from reporters for two of our nation’s most prominent newspapers, top-notch journalists who were writing stories with possible lines that the top-two primary has been a factor in changing the state’s politics. I presented the evidence to both; so far, it hasn’t made any difference.
Businesses Urge Congress Not to Shut Down Government
On Monday, 251 business organizations from every corner of the United States co-signed a letter to Congress stating, “With the U.S. economy continuing to underperform, the federal government needs to maintain its normal operations pending a successful outcome of broader budgetary reforms. It is not in the best interest of the employers, employees or the American people to risk a government shutdown that will be economically disruptive and create even more uncertainties for the U.S. economy. We respectfully urge the Congress to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States Government.”
This letter was spearheaded by the United States Chamber of Commerce and co-signed by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, California Chamber of Commerce, California Manufacturers & Technology Association and 14 other local chambers of commerce across the state. It represents the voice of businesses that every day have to meet payroll and keep the economy moving.
Modernizing California City Financial Reporting
We are all aware of the highly publicized cases of city bankruptcies in California, and while these are individually serious cases, there has been a lot of speculation, often without solid analysis, concerning how vulnerable many of California’s stressed cities are to bankruptcy or default on bonds. Much of the inaccurate guesswork and sensationalism is abetted by the fact that fiscal data for California’s municipalities are not being compiled nor made accessible in a form that permits timely and suitable analysis.
There is a way and opportunity to remedy this problem and improve public confidence and trust in their local governments, provide needed information to take advantage of crowdsourcing, and also, in the long run, enhance the efficiency and accessibility of public finance information.
Increased Taxes = Increased Crime
Tax increases have many intended effects, such as raising revenues and changing behavior. They also have anticipated but unfortunate effects, such as dampening growth or harming groups of taxpayers.
But a tax hike that increases crime – who would ever tolerate that?
It turns out, the Legislature is considering just such a scheme. A bill by Senator Kevin de León that would add two dollars to the tobacco tax would also result in doubling the current cigarette smuggling rate to an astonishing 39 percent of total cigarettes consumed. This would leave California with the third highest smuggling rate in the United States, behind New York and Washington, D.C.
Why Higher Business Property Taxes Would Hurt Homeowners
Efforts to increase taxes on business property put homeowners in peril; here’s why.
Sacramento can never get enough tax money to satisfy the political class. Although California has the highest state sales tax, highest marginal income tax rates, and highest gas tax in all 50 states, we rank only 14th highest in per capita property taxes. The politicians, government employee unions, and the special interest pleaders see this as an area of potential revenue growth — higher taxes, that is.
Several years ago, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg outlined a plan to incrementally diminish taxpayer protections to allow for the ratcheting up of taxes. The first step was to eliminate the two-thirds vote to pass a state budget — a law that dated back to 1933 — and then move on to targeting Proposition 13’s two-thirds vote requirement for increases in state taxes as well as for the passage of local per-parcel property taxes on homeowners. Steinberg’s step one was accomplished in 2010, with the passage of Proposition 25.