Steven Greenhut
California
California ‘The Big State that Can’t’ (or won’t)
As the public employee pension and health care benefit crisis sweeps across the nation, some states are dealing seriously with these multibillion-dollar threats to public services and treasuries. And other states remain in deep denial. California, to no one’s surprise, is moving stridently in the wrong direction. The tiny state ...
Agriculture
Can’t Live by Scenery Alone
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike,” wrote John Muir, in one of his many celebrations of the majesty of the Yosemite Valley. The Scottish-born founder of the Sierra Club recognized ...
Business & Economics
Getting Serious About Ron Paul
I can’t forgive myself for voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor during the 2003 recall. I selected a “winnable” loser rather than Tom McClintock, a principled conservative who knew what policies to pursue to right California’s sinking fiscal ship. If everyone who voted for Schwarzenegger under the belief that McClintock ...
California
‘Think Long’ report short on serious ideas
Would California be in better shape if former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gray Davis, or former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, were back in power? That’s an odd question given the fiscal mess that those politicians helped create, or at least were powerless to fix. These politicos had their chance at ...
California
A pension head fake
California Republicans did a fine job playing the pension-reform hand that Gov. Jerry Brown handed them. On Nov. 9, Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton and three of his GOP colleagues held a news conference calling for the Democrat-controlled Legislature to hold a special session to deal with the governor’s 12-point ...
California
Corporate Welfare and the California GOP
We all know that California’s Democratic Party is running the state into the fiscal ground, given how beholden its members are to public sector unions and how devoted they are to expanding government and raising taxes. The state needs some political competition, but a major court case reminds us why ...
California
Why GOP is Dying in California
We all know that California’s Democratic Party is running the state into the ground fiscally, given how beholden its legislators and elected officials are to public sector unions and how devoted they are to expanding government and raising taxes. The state needs some political competition, but a major court case ...
California
Pension Reform Goes Nowhere in California
Despite some encouraging details in California Gov. Jerry Brown’s recently announced pension-reform proposal, there’s virtually no chance the state will seriously reform—or even seriously attempt to reform—a system creaking under the weight of about $500 billion in unfunded liabilities. The proposal isn’t bad. It doesn’t go far enough to fix ...
California
Gov. Brown’s decent pension plan is a long shot
Despite some encouraging details in Gov. Jerry Brown’s recently announced pension-reform proposal, there’s virtually no chance the state will seriously reform — or even seriously attempt to reform — a system creaking under the weight of about $500 billion in unfunded liabilities. The proposal isn’t bad. It doesn’t go far ...
Agriculture
Rural rebellion brewing
The nearly five-hour drive from the Sacramento area to Yreka, in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border, was a reminder not just of the immense size and beauty of California, but of the vast regional and cultural differences one finds within our 37-million-population state. Sacramento is Government Central, a land ...
California ‘The Big State that Can’t’ (or won’t)
As the public employee pension and health care benefit crisis sweeps across the nation, some states are dealing seriously with these multibillion-dollar threats to public services and treasuries. And other states remain in deep denial. California, to no one’s surprise, is moving stridently in the wrong direction. The tiny state ...
Can’t Live by Scenery Alone
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike,” wrote John Muir, in one of his many celebrations of the majesty of the Yosemite Valley. The Scottish-born founder of the Sierra Club recognized ...
Getting Serious About Ron Paul
I can’t forgive myself for voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor during the 2003 recall. I selected a “winnable” loser rather than Tom McClintock, a principled conservative who knew what policies to pursue to right California’s sinking fiscal ship. If everyone who voted for Schwarzenegger under the belief that McClintock ...
‘Think Long’ report short on serious ideas
Would California be in better shape if former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gray Davis, or former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, were back in power? That’s an odd question given the fiscal mess that those politicians helped create, or at least were powerless to fix. These politicos had their chance at ...
A pension head fake
California Republicans did a fine job playing the pension-reform hand that Gov. Jerry Brown handed them. On Nov. 9, Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton and three of his GOP colleagues held a news conference calling for the Democrat-controlled Legislature to hold a special session to deal with the governor’s 12-point ...
Corporate Welfare and the California GOP
We all know that California’s Democratic Party is running the state into the fiscal ground, given how beholden its members are to public sector unions and how devoted they are to expanding government and raising taxes. The state needs some political competition, but a major court case reminds us why ...
Why GOP is Dying in California
We all know that California’s Democratic Party is running the state into the ground fiscally, given how beholden its legislators and elected officials are to public sector unions and how devoted they are to expanding government and raising taxes. The state needs some political competition, but a major court case ...
Pension Reform Goes Nowhere in California
Despite some encouraging details in California Gov. Jerry Brown’s recently announced pension-reform proposal, there’s virtually no chance the state will seriously reform—or even seriously attempt to reform—a system creaking under the weight of about $500 billion in unfunded liabilities. The proposal isn’t bad. It doesn’t go far enough to fix ...
Gov. Brown’s decent pension plan is a long shot
Despite some encouraging details in Gov. Jerry Brown’s recently announced pension-reform proposal, there’s virtually no chance the state will seriously reform — or even seriously attempt to reform — a system creaking under the weight of about $500 billion in unfunded liabilities. The proposal isn’t bad. It doesn’t go far ...
Rural rebellion brewing
The nearly five-hour drive from the Sacramento area to Yreka, in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border, was a reminder not just of the immense size and beauty of California, but of the vast regional and cultural differences one finds within our 37-million-population state. Sacramento is Government Central, a land ...
