In Chicago, escalating property taxes are headline news. With the average property tax bill due to go up by 13 percent – and more increases in subsequent years virtually guaranteed – home ownership in the Windy City is in deep peril. No one seems happy except the moving companies. This drastic tax increase is the...
This week, after reaching agreement with Governor Brown, the California Legislature will pass the state budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year. In so doing, it will meet its Constitutional deadline of June 15th. A few weeks ago, this column attempted to provide some clarity to ordinary citizen taxpayers on basic state budget issues. This included...
Editor’s note: This is an edited version of an article first published in the Washington Examiner on May 4, 2016 under the title, “Right-to-work strengthens workers.” In March, the United Auto Workers reported that its membership grew 1.3 percent in 2015. This may come as a surprise to some because a substantial number of UAW...
Perhaps the best decision California voters can make at the polls this November is to vote “NO” on the initiative extending the Prop. 30 temporary tax increases that expire in 2018. Why? The short answer is that extending the Prop. 30 tax extensions effectively bails out California State Democrat politicians for their inability to take...
Last week, Will Kempton, Executive Director of Transportation California and former Director of Caltrans published a response to Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, in a Fox & Hounds piece stating that, “…in spite of all the recent audits and criticism, the organization employs competent people who want to serve the public well.” In the...
Proposition 13 is certain to continue to be a hot topic in 2016 and beyond as “reformers” continue to work on mobilizing a statewide effort to enact a “split-roll” that raises billions of dollars in increased property taxes from California businesses. I have worked in and around Prop. 13 in one form or another for...
They are overshadowed by one of the most tumultuous Presidential primary campaigns in decades, but California’s June 7th primary ballot has local tax and bond proposals in numbers that, in aggregate, ought to be generating vigorous public debate. Next week voters will be asked to approve 46 local bond measures totaling $6.18 billion in new debt, along...
Financialization – “a pattern of accumulation in which profit making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production.” – Greta Krippner, University of Michigan (source Wikipedia) If you want one word to describe the biggest threat to the American economy, “financialization” would be the prime candidate. This is a threat that...
With the California Chamber of Commerce announcing yesterday that it will oppose the Proposition 30, income tax extension, the question arises if a campaign will come together to match the financial firepower that the teachers, medical professionals and other public employee unions bring to the table in support of the measure. Officially, the word from the...
Imagine for a moment that two premises are beyond serious debate: (1) That there will be another financial crisis within the next five years that will equal or exceed the severity of the one experienced in 2009, and (2) That the political power of public safety unions will prevent local governments from enacting pension reforms...
Governor Jerry Brown put just about everything he could in the May Revise, except for the “kitchen sink,” to try to convince the Democrat-controlled Legislature to “hold the line” on new deficit spending. The Governor cited economic risks as the most important reason to spend less and build up the state’s reserves. As illustrated by...
Average taxpayers in California are probably aware that the state budget was in the news again over the weekend. But even folks who follow both Presidential politics and local issues probably couldn’t be blamed if they tune out stories about the California budget. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s just that public finance issues...
It’s election season, so every California Democrat politician is out there on the campaign trail, precinct walking with their “friends” in labor, and speaking to labor organizations and anyone else who will listen. They are speaking with one voice–that ” we are proud to stand up for working families.” This may sound like a great...
A May 10 election in West Virginia could leave the state’s new right-to-work law in peril. On that day, voters will decide whether to re-elect Republican Justice Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, or replace him, possibly with union-supported Darrell McGraw. McGraw, who is seen as leading the pack of those...