Marc Joffe is President of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association and a California Policy Center visiting fellow.
After a long career in the financial industry, including a senior director role at Moody’s Analytics, he transitioned to policy research at CPC and Reason Foundation. Joffe’s research focuses on government finance and state policy issues.
Marc earned an MBA from New York University and an MPA from San Francisco State University.
Besides making billionaires pay their “fair share”, the case for Proposition 40 revolves around offsetting “catastrophic” federal Medi-Cal cuts. These cuts will likely be reversed by an incoming Democratic Congress, but, regardless, the expected cuts are not as catastrophic as Prop 40 advocates make them out to be. Last September, the campaign that later qualified...
By Marc Joffe
Many think of the League of Women Voters as an unbiased source of voter information. But, in the Bay Area at least, nothing could be further from the truth. LWV Bay Area has received funding from local transit agencies and is earning that support by campaigning on behalf of their $17 billion transit sales tax....
By Marc Joffe
Teachers’ unions have squeezed education budgets across California without academic gains to compensate. Many California school districts face precarious financial circumstances especially if the state revenue boom from AI slows down. Recently, the state’s largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, faced a budget crisis after their local union pressured the district to accept a costly...
By Marc Joffe, Kevin Ji
By Marc Joffe, Kevin Ji
This year’s California county voter information guides will once again display a serious inequity. Arguments in favor of bond and tax measures will usually be well written and signed by several local luminaries. Arguments against will often be less professionally written, have fewer signers, and may even be completely missing. In San Bernardino County, for...
By Marc Joffe
On July 2, Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools Debra Duardo sent the Los Angeles Unified School District a letter that should alarm every taxpayer and parent in the district. Duardo determined that LAUSD meets the statutory criteria for a “Lack of Going Concern” designation, meaning the nation’s second largest school district may be unable to meet its...
By Marc Joffe
As the United States celebrates the semiquincentennial of its founding in 1776, it is worth reflecting on a remarkable historical coincidence: the birth of our nation occurred the same year Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith’s seminal work articulated the concept of the invisible hand,...
By Marc Joffe
As Los Angeles County worked through more than 700,000 uncounted ballots after the June primary, the argument focuses on the speed of the count. But it is also worth wondering just who is taking so long to count our votes. In California’s largest counties, the permanent employees who process and tabulate ballots are represented by some of...
By Marc Joffe
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) continues to demonstrate a stunning disconnect between its investment performance and the compensation it awards its top administrators. A 255-page forensic investigation conducted by former SEC lawyer Edward Siedle and pension analyst Chris Tobe, commissioned by the Retired Public Employees’ Association of California, details a culture of secrecy...
By Marc Joffe
Taxpayers have a fundamental right to know how their money is being managed. Three conditions define a best-practice state regime for local government financial reporting. First, the state should require all local governments above a meaningful revenue threshold to produce independently audited financial statements annually. Second, the state should enforce a prompt filing deadline with...
By Marc Joffe
Last week, KCRA 3 in Sacramento reported that the Newsom administration’s January budget contained a roughly $2 billion accounting error tied to CalPERS pension contributions. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged the problem in February. Legislative leaders knew. The public didn’t find out until April. The story is genuinely newsworthy, but not for the reason...
By Marc Joffe
San Francisco and Portland are the only two US cities that tax companies if the pay ratio between the CEO and other employees is “too high.”. After agreeing to lower this tax in 2024 via Proposition M, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its organized labor allies are pushing a ballot measure to raise...
By Marc Joffe
California voters will decide this year whether the state will remain the global center of technology innovation or begin a steady decline. Their choice for governor and on a key ballot initiative will make the difference. The top three Democratic gubernatorial candidates enjoy strong backing from organized labor, including the state’s all-powerful public-employee unions. If...
By Marc Joffe
The California High-Speed Rail Authority released its 2026 Draft Business Plan on February 28, two years after the prior plan and in a radically different environment than when that last plan was written. While quite detailed, the new plan raises serious questions that the Authority has not fully answered: about costs that keep growing, about...
By Marc Joffe
a new form will got here