Investigative Reports

Redevelopment fallout: Lawmakers impose big new taxes

March 5, 2013 By Katy Grimes SACRAMENTO -- SB 391 is the California Stamp Act. The original Stamp Act was imposed in 1765 and helped spark the American Revolution against British tyranny. According to History.org, "The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a...

Voters can dry up ‘inevitable’ tax on rain

Feb. 25, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi The lyrics to Celine Dion song, “Rain Tax (It’s Inevitable),” suggested that some day government was bound to levy a tax on natural rainfall. By 2009, the California legislature voted to impose just such a rain tax through Assembly Bill 2554. The tax...

Will Blue-State California become Detroit on the Pacific?

Feb. 18, 2013 By Robert J. Cristiano, Ph.D. Environmentalists have used the allusion of the canary in the mineshaft when describing the importance of protecting the endangered Desert Sand Fly, Stephens Kangaroo Rat or the infamous Delta Smelt. By placing these insignificant creatures on the En...

Brown proposal would force local school tax increases

Feb. 12, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed re-engineering of the California public school finance system takes a chapter out of President Obama’s urban policy playbook to covertly fund big city school districts with suburban money. We could see more of that tonight in the ...