California
Business & Economics
Where Are the Angry California Voters?
The G.O.P. in California has had to rely on candidates who can finance themselves. NO MONEY, NO MOVEMENT California is home to a large and energetic Tea Party movement but the state’s activists have not had much effect on the current election cycle. Timing, the size of California and the ...
Business & Economics
Progressives for Pension Reform?
With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state will need to tap its general fund for billions to prop up faltering public-employee pension funds. With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state ...
Business & Economics
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Business & Economics
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Business & Economics
Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare
SACRAMENTO – It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from “raiding” local treasuries, this November initiative simply pits different government groups ...
Commentary
Mass. mess: ObamaCare’s ugly future
Massachusetts’ struggle to make “universal health insurance” work continues to be an excellent peek at what the entire nation faces when ObamaCare kicks in — and the picture remains ugly. Gov. Deval Patrick has just reached a truce with three of the four top insurers in the state, compromising on ...
Business & Economics
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
Commentary
Government Greed, Not Human Need, Drives the Growth of Medicaid
Key Points For four and a half decades, Medicaid has experienced significantly faster cost increases than Medicare or private health spending. Since February 2009, the federal government has leveraged states’ Medicaid spending to unprecedented levels. The “stimulus” bill, ObamaCare, and the recently passed bailout for states have further reduced incentives ...
Where Are the Angry California Voters?
The G.O.P. in California has had to rely on candidates who can finance themselves. NO MONEY, NO MOVEMENT California is home to a large and energetic Tea Party movement but the state’s activists have not had much effect on the current election cycle. Timing, the size of California and the ...
Progressives for Pension Reform?
With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state will need to tap its general fund for billions to prop up faltering public-employee pension funds. With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state ...
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare
SACRAMENTO – It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from “raiding” local treasuries, this November initiative simply pits different government groups ...
Mass. mess: ObamaCare’s ugly future
Massachusetts’ struggle to make “universal health insurance” work continues to be an excellent peek at what the entire nation faces when ObamaCare kicks in — and the picture remains ugly. Gov. Deval Patrick has just reached a truce with three of the four top insurers in the state, compromising on ...
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
Government Greed, Not Human Need, Drives the Growth of Medicaid
Key Points For four and a half decades, Medicaid has experienced significantly faster cost increases than Medicare or private health spending. Since February 2009, the federal government has leveraged states’ Medicaid spending to unprecedented levels. The “stimulus” bill, ObamaCare, and the recently passed bailout for states have further reduced incentives ...
