JAN. 17, 2012 They were slapping high fives in the offices of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer this week. Why the celebration? Because California no longer has the nation’s worst credit rating, according to Moody’s Investors Service. “The reason we’ve improved our standing,” said Tom D...
Columns-Budget and FinanceRedevelopment barons plot comebackMonday, January 9th, 2012 JAN. 9, 2012 I'm still giddy after the California Supreme Court ruled last month that the state had every right to shut down those noxious enemies of property rights and fiscal responsibility -- redevelopment agencies. Better yet, the state's high court ruled that another law that allowed those a... Gov.’s Groundhog Day In CaliforniaSaturday, January 7th, 2012 JAN. 7, 2011 It felt like "Groundhog Day" on Thursday during Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal press conference. I had a flashback to January 2011. Listening to him make the same claims about the budget that he made all year proved that Brown has only one trick in his bag. After attending a... Real Message in Brown’s ‘Open Letter’Monday, December 12th, 2011DEC. 12, 2011 Gov. Jerry Brown recently released "An Open Letter to the People of California," in which he called for the state's taxpayers to approve tax-raising initiatives to "fix" the state's structural budget deficit. Here are portions of the letter and my interpretation of what Brown rea... California ‘The Big State that Can’t’Monday, December 5th, 2011DEC. 5, 2011 As the public employee pension and health care benefit crisis sweeps across the nation, some states are dealing seriously with these multibillion-dollar threats to public services and treasuries. And other states remain in deep denial. California, to no one's surprise, is moving stri... Defiling California TaxpayersThursday, December 1st, 2011 NOV. 30, 2011 If growing an economy were as simple as expanding government spending and increasing deficits, then California would be the leader in global economics. Whether it’s highway funds or solar subsidies, for every new construction job politicians claim will be created from gover... Court Case Shows Republican HypocrisyMonday, November 14th, 2011 NOV. 14, 2011 We all know that California's Democratic Party is running the state into the fiscal ground, given how beholden its members are to public-sector unions and how devoted they are to expanding government and raising taxes. The state needs some political competition, but a major court ca... Brown Pension Plan Going NowhereMonday, November 7th, 2011NOV. 7, 2011 Despite some encouraging details in Gov. Jerry Brown's recently announced pension-reform proposal, there's virtually no chance the state will seriously reform -- or even seriously attempt to reform -- a system creaking under the weight of up to an estimated $500 billion in unfunded l... Pension Pots Calling Kettles BlackMonday, October 10th, 2011OCT. 10, 2011 The nation's two largest pension funds, the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, have been plagued by myriad fiscal problems and even a corruption scandal in the case of CalPERS, yet these systems continue to lecture th... California’s War on MotoristsSunday, September 25th, 2011 SEPT. 25, 2011 Laguna Niguel motorists should honk their horns in celebration. Their city council this week voted not to join the ranks of local governments throughout the state that have installed red light cameras on their streets. The primary function of “automated traffic enforcement sys... |