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...
Sacramento politicians cannot resist the urge to “regulate” the “gig economy” to impose arduous work rules, regulations, and a whole host of bureaucratic red tape on one of the most successful economic enterprises to surface in the past few years. People here in the Bay Area love Lyft and Uber, not the heavily regulated taxi...
Two Case Studies on How Two Counties Purchased Outside Legal Opinions That Delivered Aggressively Self-Serving Interpretations of the Law in Response to Grand Jury Reports That Found That Substantial Pension Benefits had Been Granted Illegally. Introduction In California, public pensions are guided by different divisions of the government code. The largest administrator is CalPERS which administers...
Marin County is not the only county in California where pension benefits were increased, retroactively, back when the increased cost was seemed to be easily covered by double-digit returns on pension fund investments. But Marin County is the only county, at least right now, where a private citizen is taking the county Board of Supervisors to court over...
It was with great surprise that I learned yesterday that Bay Area Rapid Transit management had reached a “tentative deal” with the BART unions that would increase worker wages by 10.8% over four years starting in mid-2017, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. The “tentative deal” comes more than one year before the end...