Budget and Finance
Back to homepageKalifornia Kinder Koncentration Kamps
John Seiler: Childhood should be a time of exploring the universe opening up before one. It ought to be filled with joy, freedom, happiness and, yes, danger. It’s danger that keeps life interesting. Not in the Kalifornia Kinder Koncentration Kamps.
Read MoreDo high taxes cost state jobs?
AUGUST 30, 2010 By JOHN SEILER It’s become a commonplace among many Republicans, conservatives and libertarians that California’s high-tax climate kills jobs. The jobs are either destroyed, driven to other states, or not created here in the first place. A
Read MorePension escape routes being cut
AUGUST 30, 2010 I’ve frequently argued that, as the state faces an unfunded pension liability that’s as high as $500 billion, legislators are not doing anything about a problem that is depleting public services and imposing additional debt and tax
Read MoreHow Severe is U.S. pension debt?
AUGUST 27, 2010 By STEVEN GREENHUT This piece was originally published on the Nieman Watchdog site. As the economy boomed, few people worried much about the debt that local and state governments were amassing to pay for increasingly generous pension
Read More"Sign Me Up" For Financial Aid
Katy Grimes: A bill seeking to give away more student financial aid passed in the Assembly yesterday in a 60-0 vote. When Assemblyman Chris Norby stood to speak about it, Assembly members braced in preparation for his usual opposition. However,
Read MoreProp. 22 protects corporate welfare
AUG. 23, 2010 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
Read More$578 million L.A. school
John Seiler: As a punctuation point to my recent article, “L.A. spends $30K per student,” the LAUSD is opening it’s new $578 million school. It will have, incredibly, 4,200 students. This isn’t school, it’s an educational gulag. Imagine spending 13
Read MoreLAUSD spends $30K per student
AUGUST 20, 2010 By JOHN SEILER The research by Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom seemed shocking: The Los Angeles Unified School District spent $29,780 per student in fiscal year 2007-08. That’s way above the $10,000
Read MoreHalf of Cal kids flunk
John Seiler: Maybe the reason voters keep electing turkeys to office in California is that the state’s schooling system turns out half-literates. The latest: Statewide, 52 percent of students in grades 2 through 11 tested proficient or advanced in English
Read MoreTax hikes would harm CA economy
AUGUST 17, 2010 By JOHN SEILER Do tax hikes fix budgets? That was the subject of an article I wrote last month here on CalWatchDog.com. The question is critical as the California Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, still unable to
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