California
Business & Economics
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Health Care
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
California
How California Prisons Got So Bad
In the Assembly last week, legislators praised ethnic studies departments and had long-winded debates before voting to ban the trading of shark fins in California. But while state government becomes ever-more meddlesome in ever-expanding areas of private life, it’s increasingly clear that the Legislature and the state bureaucracies are incapable ...
Business & Economics
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
Business & Economics
Prisoner of the Union
When California governor Jerry Brown announced details last month of a two-year contract that he’d negotiated with California’s prison guards’ union, you could practically hear the sighs of disappointment from stalwarts who had hoped that the 73-year-old maverick might take on a few vested interests as he tried to close ...
California
Schwarzenegger a power-loving phony
SACRAMENTO Last weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, “Total Recall,” a 1990 sci-fi flick based on a Philip K. Dick novel and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is Schwarzenegger’s character an intergalactic double agent who saves the mutants on Mars from the evil plans of a nasty profiteer or is ...
Business & Economics
Open Government Requires More Sunshine
The city of Bell pay scandal highlighted serious flaws in California’s open-government laws. Now a proposed constitutional change wants the people to guarantee more sunshine to the Golden State. That’s how government openness was achieved in the past, through action by citizens and news organizations. After World War II, it ...
Commentary
Unions say, ‘Shut up and pay us’
Yet another report confirms the enormous liabilities that California taxpayers must endure to pay for pensions for public employees. The study, released May 5 at a Pension Boot Camp for elected officials held near Sacramento by the reform group Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, echoed the points made by the watchdog ...
California
California’s Cover Story
Last month The Economist ran a cover story: “Where it all went wrong: A special report on California’s dysfunctional democracy.” The report blames “direct democracy,” the initiative process, for the state’s woes. The ruling class loves the report, but Californians have good reason to be wary. The initiative process lets ...
Commentary
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Why Medicaid Should Be Easier to Fix than Entitlement Programs
Congress remains gridlocked on many important issues but not every politician is afraid to challenge the unsustainable growth of Medicaid. Consider S. 1031, by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. This measure would increase local control over Medicaid spending and improve the incentives that have led politicians to trap ever more low-income ...
How California Prisons Got So Bad
In the Assembly last week, legislators praised ethnic studies departments and had long-winded debates before voting to ban the trading of shark fins in California. But while state government becomes ever-more meddlesome in ever-expanding areas of private life, it’s increasingly clear that the Legislature and the state bureaucracies are incapable ...
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
Prisoner of the Union
When California governor Jerry Brown announced details last month of a two-year contract that he’d negotiated with California’s prison guards’ union, you could practically hear the sighs of disappointment from stalwarts who had hoped that the 73-year-old maverick might take on a few vested interests as he tried to close ...
Schwarzenegger a power-loving phony
SACRAMENTO Last weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, “Total Recall,” a 1990 sci-fi flick based on a Philip K. Dick novel and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is Schwarzenegger’s character an intergalactic double agent who saves the mutants on Mars from the evil plans of a nasty profiteer or is ...
Open Government Requires More Sunshine
The city of Bell pay scandal highlighted serious flaws in California’s open-government laws. Now a proposed constitutional change wants the people to guarantee more sunshine to the Golden State. That’s how government openness was achieved in the past, through action by citizens and news organizations. After World War II, it ...
Unions say, ‘Shut up and pay us’
Yet another report confirms the enormous liabilities that California taxpayers must endure to pay for pensions for public employees. The study, released May 5 at a Pension Boot Camp for elected officials held near Sacramento by the reform group Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, echoed the points made by the watchdog ...
California’s Cover Story
Last month The Economist ran a cover story: “Where it all went wrong: A special report on California’s dysfunctional democracy.” The report blames “direct democracy,” the initiative process, for the state’s woes. The ruling class loves the report, but Californians have good reason to be wary. The initiative process lets ...
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
