Steven Greenhut
Business & Economics
Referendum on unions in OC
Voters in North Orange County on June 8 will fill the Fourth Supervisorial District seat vacated by Chris Norby when he was elected to the state Assembly to replace Mike Duvall, of sex-scandal fame. Most residents probably don’t think too much about the Board of Supervisors, but there is one ...
Business & Economics
Even ‘SNL’ is on to government unions
SACRAMENTO – As government employee unions were negotiating their lucrative retirement deals during the rising economic tide of the past decade, they promised cities and counties that the deals would pay for themselves, citing fanciful rates of return on investment income. Now that the economic tide is no longer rising, ...
Business & Economics
Get in line, and take a number
SACRAMENTO – I’ve experienced several months where, for one reason or another, I’ve been stuck wrestling with various bureaucracies, of the governmental and corporate variety. It’s a frustrating, time-consuming and, ultimately, dehumanizing process. You’re always a number. Most everyone at the other end of those darned customer “service” lines is ...
Business & Economics
Pension crater much deeper
SACRAMENTO – A new report from Stanford University’s well-respected economic policy institute has revealed that those of us who have been warning about California’s severely underfunded public employee retirement systems have, quite frankly, been wrong. We have been understating the scope of the problem. Pension critics, myself included, have been ...
Business & Economics
Jerry Brown: older, not wiser
Now that California Attorney General Jerry Brown is an official candidate for governor, we’re getting to relive some California political history as pundits and reporters think back to Brown’s first stint as governor (1975-83) along with some of the entertaining facets of his long and bizarre political career. The basic ...
Business & Economics
Vallejo Goes for Broke
Can bankruptcy save California’s cities from staggering pension obligations? As California cities and counties struggle to fulfill the generous pay and pension commitments that they made to public employees during flush economic times, some politicians have taken comfort in a usually forbidding word: bankruptcy. Top officials in Los Angeles and ...
Agriculture
Enviros trade in human misery
SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Business & Economics
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Business & Economics
Legends in their own minds
SACRAMENTO When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
Business & Economics
No roads to recovery in sight
With California teetering on insolvency, government union activists and liberal legislators are trying to whip the public into a “please tax us more” frenzy by scaring people about the consequences of spending cuts. At a union rally in Sacramento recently, one protester hoisted a “Raise Our Taxes” sign, which typifies ...
Referendum on unions in OC
Voters in North Orange County on June 8 will fill the Fourth Supervisorial District seat vacated by Chris Norby when he was elected to the state Assembly to replace Mike Duvall, of sex-scandal fame. Most residents probably don’t think too much about the Board of Supervisors, but there is one ...
Even ‘SNL’ is on to government unions
SACRAMENTO – As government employee unions were negotiating their lucrative retirement deals during the rising economic tide of the past decade, they promised cities and counties that the deals would pay for themselves, citing fanciful rates of return on investment income. Now that the economic tide is no longer rising, ...
Get in line, and take a number
SACRAMENTO – I’ve experienced several months where, for one reason or another, I’ve been stuck wrestling with various bureaucracies, of the governmental and corporate variety. It’s a frustrating, time-consuming and, ultimately, dehumanizing process. You’re always a number. Most everyone at the other end of those darned customer “service” lines is ...
Pension crater much deeper
SACRAMENTO – A new report from Stanford University’s well-respected economic policy institute has revealed that those of us who have been warning about California’s severely underfunded public employee retirement systems have, quite frankly, been wrong. We have been understating the scope of the problem. Pension critics, myself included, have been ...
Jerry Brown: older, not wiser
Now that California Attorney General Jerry Brown is an official candidate for governor, we’re getting to relive some California political history as pundits and reporters think back to Brown’s first stint as governor (1975-83) along with some of the entertaining facets of his long and bizarre political career. The basic ...
Vallejo Goes for Broke
Can bankruptcy save California’s cities from staggering pension obligations? As California cities and counties struggle to fulfill the generous pay and pension commitments that they made to public employees during flush economic times, some politicians have taken comfort in a usually forbidding word: bankruptcy. Top officials in Los Angeles and ...
Enviros trade in human misery
SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Legends in their own minds
SACRAMENTO When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
No roads to recovery in sight
With California teetering on insolvency, government union activists and liberal legislators are trying to whip the public into a “please tax us more” frenzy by scaring people about the consequences of spending cuts. At a union rally in Sacramento recently, one protester hoisted a “Raise Our Taxes” sign, which typifies ...
