State Budget
Business & Economics
Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government?
Vol. 16 No. 28 July 21, 2010 Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government? By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—Those who believe California state government is too large, and that we ought to make it smaller, are guilty of “conventional bigotry aimed at state employees.” So writes state employee ...
Business & Economics
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
Business & Economics
Seriously folks, these folks aren’t
Sacramento – The Australian radio announcer interviewing me last week about the dreadful state of California’s budget and economy wanted to know what she would find if she landed at LAX and drove around the state. It’s not like “Blade Runner,” director Ridley Scott’s 1982 film depicting a dystopian future ...
Business & Economics
Grab that redevelopment cash
SACRAMENTO Few things are more ironic, and infuriatingly funny, than listening to California’s notoriously ham-fisted redevelopment agencies complain about the state’s “theft” of redevelopment funds. Last week, California cities had to comply with a Sacramento Superior Court judge’s ruling requiring them to make the first of two payments transferring a ...
Business & Economics
Arnold, for once, is right
From fiscal failure to green destructiveness to an utter lack of courage when it would have mattered most, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure in office has not been an exercise in analytic rigor. But on one proposal – the sale and leaseback of 11 state office buildings – Arnold is correct, ...
Commentary
Health reform’s war on the states
President Obama and Congress have succeeded in a massively disruptive reorganization of health insurance by the federal government. This mission, although most people don’t know it, is about to collide with state budgets, causing much collateral damage nationwide. Most people remain unaware that health insurance premiums contribute to states’ tax ...
Commentary
Health reform’s unexpected impact on Nevada’s budget
Senator Harry Reid and his D.C. colleagues have succeeded in a massively disruptive reorganization of health insurance by the federal government. This mission is about to collide with state budgets, causing much collateral damage nationwide. Most people remain unaware that health-insurance premiums contribute to states’ tax revenues. On average, states ...
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 ...
Health Care
What the Congressional Budget Office Doesn’t Score: More Than $6.5 Billion Annual State Revenue at Risk from Federal Health “Reform”
Key Points State revenues in 2008 included an estimated $6.5 billion in revenues from premium taxes levied on health insurance. The federal takeover of health insurance will lure 15 million more people into Medicaid, and nine million into federally licensed “exchanges” from state-regulated health insurance. The “reform” will reduce states’ ...
Health Care
What CBO Doesn’t Score: Over $6.5 Billion Annual State Revenue At Risk
Now that Congress has reached the “end of the beginning” of the federal take-over of people’s access to medical services, please allow me to point out a cost that Congress has ignored. According the the CBO’s score of the Senate health “reform,” H.R. 3590, the bill would insure 31 million ...
Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government?
Vol. 16 No. 28 July 21, 2010 Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government? By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—Those who believe California state government is too large, and that we ought to make it smaller, are guilty of “conventional bigotry aimed at state employees.” So writes state employee ...
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
Seriously folks, these folks aren’t
Sacramento – The Australian radio announcer interviewing me last week about the dreadful state of California’s budget and economy wanted to know what she would find if she landed at LAX and drove around the state. It’s not like “Blade Runner,” director Ridley Scott’s 1982 film depicting a dystopian future ...
Grab that redevelopment cash
SACRAMENTO Few things are more ironic, and infuriatingly funny, than listening to California’s notoriously ham-fisted redevelopment agencies complain about the state’s “theft” of redevelopment funds. Last week, California cities had to comply with a Sacramento Superior Court judge’s ruling requiring them to make the first of two payments transferring a ...
Arnold, for once, is right
From fiscal failure to green destructiveness to an utter lack of courage when it would have mattered most, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure in office has not been an exercise in analytic rigor. But on one proposal – the sale and leaseback of 11 state office buildings – Arnold is correct, ...
Health reform’s war on the states
President Obama and Congress have succeeded in a massively disruptive reorganization of health insurance by the federal government. This mission, although most people don’t know it, is about to collide with state budgets, causing much collateral damage nationwide. Most people remain unaware that health insurance premiums contribute to states’ tax ...
Health reform’s unexpected impact on Nevada’s budget
Senator Harry Reid and his D.C. colleagues have succeeded in a massively disruptive reorganization of health insurance by the federal government. This mission is about to collide with state budgets, causing much collateral damage nationwide. Most people remain unaware that health-insurance premiums contribute to states’ tax revenues. On average, states ...
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 ...
What the Congressional Budget Office Doesn’t Score: More Than $6.5 Billion Annual State Revenue at Risk from Federal Health “Reform”
Key Points State revenues in 2008 included an estimated $6.5 billion in revenues from premium taxes levied on health insurance. The federal takeover of health insurance will lure 15 million more people into Medicaid, and nine million into federally licensed “exchanges” from state-regulated health insurance. The “reform” will reduce states’ ...
What CBO Doesn’t Score: Over $6.5 Billion Annual State Revenue At Risk
Now that Congress has reached the “end of the beginning” of the federal take-over of people’s access to medical services, please allow me to point out a cost that Congress has ignored. According the the CBO’s score of the Senate health “reform,” H.R. 3590, the bill would insure 31 million ...
