State Budget
Commentary
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
Business & Economics
Brown Busts the Budget
The California Legislature just passed a budget. Less than 24 hours later, the governor vetoed it, leaving many scratching their heads why Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a budget from his own party. For the first time in history, the state budget has been vetoed, Brown said in a news conference. ...
Business & Economics
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Business & Economics
Budget battle a bad movie we’ve seen before
Have you ever watched one of those predictable, boring movies where you wish you could just skip the obligatory chase and romance scenes and get to the “I see it coming” ending already? That’s what I feel like as I watch the unfolding drama – and I use the term ...
Commentary
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
Business & Economics
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
Education
NEW BOOK! Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California
Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited San Francisco—Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing ...
Business & Economics
Brown targets corporate welfare
This really could be the beginning of the end for the state’s redevelopment agencies, those noxious, corporate-welfare-enabling entities that have wreaked havoc on property rights in California since the 1950s. The new governor’s budget plan would eliminate California’s 425 redevelopment agencies and divert the cash that now goes through them ...
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
Brown Busts the Budget
The California Legislature just passed a budget. Less than 24 hours later, the governor vetoed it, leaving many scratching their heads why Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a budget from his own party. For the first time in history, the state budget has been vetoed, Brown said in a news conference. ...
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Budget battle a bad movie we’ve seen before
Have you ever watched one of those predictable, boring movies where you wish you could just skip the obligatory chase and romance scenes and get to the “I see it coming” ending already? That’s what I feel like as I watch the unfolding drama – and I use the term ...
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
NEW BOOK! Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California
Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited San Francisco—Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing ...
Brown targets corporate welfare
This really could be the beginning of the end for the state’s redevelopment agencies, those noxious, corporate-welfare-enabling entities that have wreaked havoc on property rights in California since the 1950s. The new governor’s budget plan would eliminate California’s 425 redevelopment agencies and divert the cash that now goes through them ...
