Finance | California Policy Center

Volcker Sounds Alarm Over States' Budget Gimmicks and Pension Assumptions

The Volcker Alliance, founded by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker has sounded an alarm over budget gimmicks. The alliance seeks Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting. In the report, the Volcker Alliance examines in detail the budgeting practices of California, New Jersey and Virginia, assessing the effectiveness of each state’s practices. The report highlights the...

By Mike Shedlock

Retiree with $183,690 Annual Pension Attacks Pension Critics

“Critics of public employee retirement benefits are engaging in hyperbole and pointing to potholes as evidence that millions of elderly Californians should be stripped of their retirement savings.” Brian Rice, president, Sacramento Area Fire Fighters, Sacramento Bee, June 2, 2015 Notwithstanding the possibility that saying pension reformers want to see “millions of elderly Californians stripped of their...

By Edward Ring

Look Out For These Pension Gimmicks

State public pension plans are the future, and often current, greatest liabilities that state governments must tackle. Promises made to employees in the past, and politicians kicking the problem further into the future have made the problem spiral out of control. Economists agree that the current discounting of liabilities leaves much to be desired. State...

By Joe Esposito

Unions Continue Attack Prop. 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act

At the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), we have seen Proposition 13 blamed for just about everything. A national publication blamed the tax limiting measure for the not guilty verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, while a high school physical education coach wrote in a community paper that the loss of shots by his...

By Jon Coupal

Minimum Wage – It’s All About Perception!

Recently, the “Fight for Fifteen” demonstrations at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart stores across the country have sparked empathy in the news coverage by the main stream media. The liberal coverage of these outlets portrays employees as being taken advantage of and in need of increased wages and benefits. As with most things in life, it is...

By Dave Bego

Pension Reformers are not "The Enemy" of Public Safety

“You will find that powerful financial and investment institutions are the ones promoting the attacks on your pensions. Firms like Berkshire-Hathaway and the Koch brothers are backing political candidates and causes all over the country in the hopes of making this issue relevant and in the mainstream media. Why? Because if they can crack your...

By Edward Ring

To Save Defined Benefit, Unions Need to Accept Investment Realities

Editor’s Note: The president of the California Professional Firefighters union, Lou Paulson, has criticized Mayor Chuck Reed’s pension reform, stating “His idea of pension reform is, you sign up for one pension system, we’re going to change it now in mid career, and now you’re going to get something different.” But Paulson, and anyone who thinks...

By Matthew Vadum

Another Consequence of Unionized Government's Insatiable Appetite for Revenue

Even good drivers get an occasional ticket. But in the last several years, there has been a perverse incentive for eagle-eyed enforcement officers to issue even more citations. We are now discovering that California drivers are a goldmine for government by the imposition of traffic fines that are absurdly excessive. As recently as 2005, a...

By Jon Coupal

Raise the Minimum Wage, or Lower the Cost of Living?

Increases to the minimum wage in California are moving closer to reality. As reported on March 30th by MyNewsLA.com, “Los Angeles County Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis will ask their colleagues to approve spending up to $95,000 to have the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation review a series of studies of the issue performed...

By Edward Ring

New Report Confirms LA Dept. Water and Power Compensation Highest in Nation

Phase I of a comprehensive benchmarking report on the LADWP was just released by the City of Los Angeles. The report itself confirmed a few things most ratepayers already know – that the LADWP’s payroll costs are dramatically higher than that of their peers and their customer service is quite poor. Previously, in my study, Examining Public...

By Robert Fellner

Illinois Pension Plans 39% Funded – Taxpayers On the Hook

Editor’s Note: When it happened in Detroit, they said it couldn’t happen in Chicago. Most Californians will agree that our economy is bigger, and more diverse and resilient than that of Illinois or Michigan. But pension fund solvency relies on perpetual bull market rates of return – and the moment the market hiccoughs again, California’s...

By Mike Shedlock

The Glass Jaw of Pension Funds is Asset Bubbles

“Calpers argued that the California constitution’s guarantee of contracts shielded pensions from cuts in bankruptcy. The fund also asserted sovereign immunity and police powers as an ‘arm of the state,’ including a lien on municipal assets.” – Wall Street Journal Editorial, “Calpers Gets Schooled,” February 8, 2015 If you want powerful evidence of crony capitalism...

By Edward Ring

Oakland City Council Staff Reports Reveal True Impact of Minimum Wage Increases

Controversy continues at the Los Angeles City Council about the selection of the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment (part of the University of California Miguel Contreras Labor Program) to produce a second taxpayer-funded study to prove again that adopting a city minimum wage ordinance would be a wonderful exercise in Progressive compassion....

By Kevin Dayton

Union Group Mobilizes "Against" Pay Hike

In what may be a first (otherwise an extreme rarity), a substantial force within a union has mobilized against a pay hike to $9.00 per hour from essentially nothing. “Nothing” you say? Yes, it happens in small non-profit theaters that pay aspiring actors $7 to $15 per performance. Rehearsal time does not count. Curiously, but rightfully...

By Mike Shedlock