Finance | California Policy Center

Time for California’s Government Unions to Get Serious About Pension Reform

It’s been a long time since California’s pension systems were responsibly managed. Back then, they made conservative investments, paid modest but fair benefits to retirees, and did not place an unreasonable financial burden on taxpayers. But a series of decisions and circumstances over the past thirty years put these pension systems on a collision course...

By Edward Ring

Grassroots Infrastructure for Initiatives and Recalls is Growing in California

Earlier this month the effort to recall Gavin Newsom was officially ended. As reported in the Times of San Diego on March 17, “Last week, the California Secretary of State’s Office informed Erin Cruz of Palm Springs that her petition effort to oust the Democratic governor had failed. A year earlier, an initiative to repeal California’s gas tax made...

By Edward Ring

California Cities in Critical Condition

The specter of California’s cities and counties becoming insolvent is nothing new. Three major California cities have already declared bankruptcy, Vallejo in 2008, Stockton and San Bernardino in 2012. In October 2019, the California State Auditor’s Office reported on the fiscal health of 471 California cities. On what the California State Auditor’s office describes as a “Local Government...

By Edward Ring

Government Pensions Are Dividing Americans and Damaging the Economy

Now that financial markets around the world are experiencing a long-overdue correction, the best we can hope for is that we hit bottom before a deflationary cascade causes a worldwide depression. Those economists who believe in the long-term debt cycle may claim that this time the end has arrived, and they may be right. COVID-19, oil price...

By Edward Ring

Gathered for the feast at the Hotel California

Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place… Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here… – “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, 1977 For decades California’s aristocracy has engaged in unsustainable feasting, as they consume the leviathan carcasses of what were for a time the world’s the...

By Edward Ring

Californians reject new taxes and borrowing

The preliminary election returns reported on March 4th indicate that California’s voters delivered a stunning rejection of new taxes and borrowing. It’s about time. At the state level, Prop.13 which would have authorized $15 billion in general obligation bonds for schools and colleges, required a simple majority for approval. But as of March 9th the...

By Edward Ring

The Wondrous, Magnificent Cities of the 21st Century

The American Conservative recently laid an egg. They published a misanthropic, pessimistically aggressive Malthusian screed, written by James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler’s “Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong” attacks pretty much every urban amenity Americans have built since the invention of the automobile. And his reasoning, all of it, reflects a dismal lack of faith in human...

By Edward Ring

Leveling with Louie on education funding

A recent chat with my cousin illuminates the chasm between fact and fantasy. After a recent post in which I detailed California’s abuse of taxpayers, I got a call from my cousin Louie, an aging Hollywood screenwriter. Known as the “red sheep” of the family, he firmly believes that pouring more money into government schools...

By Larry Sand

Teachers unions lose it over State of the Union address

Union leaders are enraged at Trump and DeVos for the audacity of promoting parental choice. Last week, the President’s State of the Union address was a typically upbeat affair. President Trump outlined his many successes and Congressional Republicans were jubilant, while Democrats scowled. One of the features of Trump’s talk was a revival of Texas...

By Larry Sand

Los Angeles School District Needs a Hard Reset

LAUSD and UTLA leaders are leading us down the road to financial ruin. A few weeks ago, I wrote that tax-grabbing state bureaucrats were pushing hard-working Californians to the brink. Incompetence, mismanaged money and union greed have turned the formerly Golden State into a failing enterprise. Here, I will focus on the Los Angeles Unified...

By Larry Sand

How California embraced Corporate Socialism

Gavin Newsom, the lily white, urbane, coiffured scion of San Francisco’s posh royalty, is California’s highest ranking Democrat. He presides over a party that has taken progressive ideals beyond absurdity to the brink of tyranny. One would think that the party of Gavin Newsom is bent on destroying everything Gavin Newsom represents. So what’s going on?...

By Edward Ring

Newsom’s 2020-21 Budget – A big pie but empty calories

Governor Newsom has unveiled his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2020-21, and it comes in at a whopping $222 billion. That’s up from $209 billion last year, and sharply up from a few years ago. Backing up a decade, the 2010-11 budget totaled $130 billion. What on earth could justify a 70 percent increase...

By Edward Ring

A solution to the free rider problem

Union leaders grumble when non-members get union perks; here’s a way out. As a result of the Janus decision in June 2018, workers are no longer forced to pay any money whatsoever to a public employee union as a condition of employment. While teachers and other government workers were freed from paying union dues or...

By Larry Sand

More Red than Ed

Radical teacher’s movement picks up some steam in 2019 and national unions join in. #RedforED began as a grassroots teachers’ movement that was organized on Facebook in early 2018. Cooked up by Noah Karvelis, a 24-year-old music teacher and socialist from Arizona, its raison-d’etre is ultimately class warfare. Karvelis’ own words are ripped from The...

By Larry Sand