The old line about nothing being certain except death and taxes is slightly less solid during the coronavirus recession, as lawmakers look to limit harm to struggling individuals and businesses by putting off when they have to pay their due to the government. But an old saw about the Golden State — there is nothing...
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...
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...
The debate over homelessness in California seemed to shift last fall, when dozens of local governments supplied or co-signed amicus briefs in a case in which Boise, Idaho, officials urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that banned arrests of people sleeping in public if they had nowhere else to go....
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...
Modern urban centers around the world now have neighborhoods that house well over 100,000 people per square mile. The Choa Chu Kang district in Singapore, defined by boulevards lined with 10 to 12 story mid-rise residential buildings, has a population density of over 125,000 per square mile. The entire borough of Manhattan has an average population density of over 70,000 per square...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Anyone unfamiliar with what is really going on in California would have listened to Governor Newsom’s State of the State address on February 12 and gotten the impression that things have never been better. Newsom’s opening set the tone for the rest of his 4,400 word monologue: “By every traditional measure, the state of our state is...
“It’s not enough. We’re still 41st in the nation in per pupil funding. Something needs to change. We need to have an honest conversation about how we fund our schools at a state and local level,” – California Governor Gavin Newsom, State of the State Address, February 12, 2020 It should come as no surprise that Governor...
When Gov. Jerry Brown left office in January 2019, most of the reviews of his second eight-year stint as leader of the nation’s richest, most populous state were effusive. Citing his restoration of fiscal stability after the Capitol chaos seen in the last three years of the Schwarzenegger administration, Brown biographer Narda Zacchino declared he...
The conventional wisdom about Proposition 13 — the only ballot measure before California voters in the March 3 election — is that the $15 billion construction bond benefitting public schools, state universities and community colleges is of relatively little importance to the average voter. While there are concerns that local districts will have to raise...