California’s modern-day progressive Democrats keep crowing about the huge success they’ve had in taming the state’s budget deficit, thanks to Proposition 30’s tax increases and other “reforms,” and now are championing the Jerry Brown model as a blueprint for the nation. Is that realistic? It’s one thing that other states have to deal with our...
Editor’s Note: In this report by Mike Shedlock, which provides details from the recent Texas State Comptroller’s report entitled “Your Money and Local Debt,” you can see that in Texas, state and local government total outstanding debt combined equals $233.2 billion, which equates to nearly $9,000 for each and every one of the 26 million...
Federal, state and local governments have generated millions of pages of unreadable prose laying out rules and regulations and asserting their authority over our lives. But the whole nation began with a Declaration of only about 1,300 well-chosen words—and perhaps the most important are the words that say governments derive their powers “from the consent...
Gov. Jerry Brown continues to pose as an iconoclast who is willing to make the tough choices necessary to keep California afloat, but his new budget is more evidence that he remains the cat’s-paw for the state’s public-sector unions. “I want to advance the progressive agenda,” Brown said at the news conference unveiling his supposedly...
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” ― George Orwell, 1984 The two largest public employee pension funds in California, CalPERS and CalSTRS, logged annual returns for their fiscal years ending June 30th, 2012, of 0.14% and 1.8%, respectively. These pension funds employ an...
Editor’s Note: If you want links to core data on Social Security finance, this post by UnionWatch contributor Mike Shedlock is a good place to start. Shedlock correctly notes that during the most recent 12 months the Social Security program ran a deficit for the first time in history. The 2013 resumption of full 6.25%...
Often during talk radio interviews I am asked, “Who is The Devil at Our Doorstep, is it the SEIU?” I love the question, because it provides the opportunity to explain that the “devil” in my book is actually a coalition of groups from the liberal left. This includes groups such as Media Matters, liberal Democrats,...
Everyone remembers how thousands of bankers and millions of homeowners were caught by surprise when the real estate bubble collapsed in late 2008. One of the major reasons this prodigious bubble was allowed to inflate in the first place was because credit rating agencies did not properly evaluate the financial risks inherent in collateralized mortgage...
When a house is burning down, firefighters rush to save the occupants and put out the fire, often incurring personal risk in the process. Sometimes firefighters even die in the act of saving us. It’s a risk they accept when they take the job. That’s why we call them heroes. So why would firefighters participate...
California revenue is up from a year ago. Unfortunately, California revenue is not up as much as expected, while spending is up way more than expected. Please consider California Finances in November 2012 by state controller John Chiang. November’s tax receipts fell 10.8% short of expectations contained in the 2012-2013 State Budget, although they were...
Among pension reformers there is a spirited ongoing debate regarding what might constitute a financially sustainable yet equitable solution. On one side there is a call to do away with defined benefits entirely, replacing them with defined contribution plans. The argument is compelling; with defined contribution plans, when the participant retires, they survive on the...
One would think that Californians would know by now that bonds are nothing more than taxes plus interest. After all, when people were borrowing against their home equity to pay off bills and buy things, didn’t they learn the hard way that the money had to be paid back with interest? Borrowing IS spending. Bonds...
Since reporting on the State Controller’s government employee pay tracker last month (ref. California State Controller’s Employee Pay Tracker Grossly Understates Actual Compensation), the State Controller’s Office has responded to one of our concerns, writing: “…it is possible in certain situations to have the data from the Controller’s GCC database sorted by city or county. ...
Earlier this week the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled “Signature gatherers duel over Riordan pension initiative.” In the article’s introduction, the Times reporter quoted a voter opposed to the initiative, writing “The Tarzana grandmother thinks younger generations shouldn’t have to worry about a retirement tied to the ups and downs of the stock...