Gavin Newsom once bragged of a surplus, but California is underwater. While finalizing the upcoming fiscal year’s state budget back in May 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom boasted of an extraordinary projected surplus: $97 billion. The governor immediately collaborated with an enthusiastic state legislature to spend it all. Of course, new spending on new programs...
Governor Gavin Newsom helped create — and is now faced with — the biggest budget deficit in Golden State history. In the summer of 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom, apparently high on the smell of cash, announced that California had just smashed through the state-budget equivalent of the first four-minute mile: a one-year surplus of $100...
It’s easy to understand why California’s public schools are seeing a mass exodus of students and families. The once-Golden State continues to have some of the worst student math and reading scores in the nation. Yet schools chief Tony Thurmond and Gov. Gavin Newsom seem more concerned about bogus “book bans” and helping kids secretly change their gender at...
with minor leagues and pre-election financial support networks Elected officials start out on financial support, long before they’re elected. Here’s one example to show how it works. In 2018, the ACLU of Southern California filed a class action lawsuit against Riverside County, alleging that a county program to intervene in the lives of at-risk youth was oppressive...
The California State Controller released the audit of California’s financial statements, performed by the State Auditor for the year ending June 30, 2022, on March 15. The annual comprehensive financial report should have been issued some 15 months sooner. Looking at the document, we are immediately informed on the first page of the Report Overview...
When it comes to the reporting of the accounting of our 50 states, two main concerns can be observed. The first is the delinquency rate of several states. For the fiscal year June 30, 2022, 20 states released their audited financial statements within six months. There are four states that deviate from the norm, with...
The California Energy Commission (CEC) has set planning goals for floating offshore wind turbines, calling for between 2 and 5 gigawatts of “nameplate capacity” operating by 2030, and 25 gigawatts by 2045. Note “floating.” Unlike off the East Coast, or the North Sea, deep waters in California lie immediately offshore. So offshore wind in California...
The logical extension of California’s environmentalist policies is to end civilization as we know it. But California’s progressive elites are not crazy or stupid. So what is their actual motivation? The destruction of dams on the Klamath River provides an encouraging precedent for progressives throughout California. As was breathlessly reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere, indigenous...
Executive Summary In Lindke v. Freed, the United States Supreme Court adopted a two-part test to determine whether a public official’s conduct on social media rises to state action for purposes of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (“Section 1983”). The Court evaluated the question of when social media use crosses the line from private action to...
While the confirmed skeptic will consider Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) to be the ultimate waste of money, it nonetheless is happening. Billions of dollars have already been committed, with no end in sight. Regardless of how one might judge its necessity, having some facts about CCS belongs in any serious discussion about California’s energy...
Prepared by Golden Together, a Movement to Restore the California Dream Lead Author, Edward Ring, California Policy Center Author Steve Hilton, Founder of Golden Together Published March 15, 2024
It would be inaccurate to suggest that California’s state legislature can no longer think big. They can, and as such they are carrying on a tradition that two generations ago gave us the best universities in the world, expressways and freeways that helped catalyze a boom that lasted for decades, and the most remarkable system...
The state of California has 58 counties and 482 cities. To provide manageable fiscal rankings, I’ve divided the state into eight regions, closely following the districts established by Caltrans. The Bay Area, Caltrans District 4, has 101 cities. The rankings for 2020 are compared to those of 2019 in the graph below. For an explanation...
In a normal year, by the end of March downtown Los Angeles receives 13 inches of rain. Last year 27.8 inches fell, and through March 3 of this year, 21.3 inches has already fallen. This suggests that both this year and last year, over 1.0 million acre feet of rainfall hit the region. Even in...