Category: Politics
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Dominoes. California Style.
The City of San Bernardino has become the third city in California to file for bankruptcy protection in the past two weeks. Essentially, the city was at a point where they weren’t going to be able to meet their payroll obligations. Stockton filed for bankruptcy protection in June. With a projected $26 million budget deficit, Stockton became the…
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A Stick Up, or A Pay Off
Sixteen billion dollars. The California projected deficit for 2012-2013. Sixteen billion. The California deficit is just three billion short of the entire budget for the state of Colorado, at nineteen billion. The California deficit is three times larger than the entire budget of the state of New Mexico, at $5.6 billion. But it is not…
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When anyone can spend, it really doesn’t matter where the money comes from, as long as it comes from someone else.
California has a long history with the ballot initiative process. Most famously, Proposition 13’s passage in 1978 heralded the Tax reform wave that swept the nation in the 1980s. Proposition 13 however, impacted how the state collected revenue, but it did not impact how the state could spend tax dollars. The larger history of the California…
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Darrell Steinberg wants a tax increase: But 2 out of three are bad.
In a Sacramento Bee article, California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D Sacramento) notes that the possibility of sending competing tax increase measures before the voters is fraught with peril. Make no mistake, Senator Steinberg wants a tax increase to pass. Because California’s highest earners aren’t paying enough? Steinberg said it “scares the heck…
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The Teenage Mindset: Go sit in the corner.
Saw this in the comments at The Bleat today. “We even have an entire political party arguing that telling someone to pay for their own stuff is the same as telling them they can’t have it – the very essence of the teenage mindset.” Keep it simple. Just because I don’t want to pay for…
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How to build a monster, or, How California Government feeds on itself.
Dan Walters, in the Sacramento Bee points out the obvious about government, and the impacts of it’s intrusion into the lives of it’s citizens: Every new regulatory or taxation policy immediately spawns an array of financial stakeholders who then hire lobbyists and political consultants, distribute money to political policymakers, and seek self-serving applications of government…
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California cries about jobs, while killing job creators
California Unemployment is going up. Not that it wasn’t already up. It has hovered near 12% for well in excess of a year. And it certainly isn’t going to get better soon. California has a functional $9 billion budget deficit. Meaning that functionally, because of spending mandated via legislation, and the Californian public’s absurd predisposition…
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Once Upon A Time, A Golden State
Victor Davis Hanson posits at Pajamas Media on the past state of California’s greatness, and our lack of attribution to those who carried the burden of achieving it: 5) I can never quite understand the writ against our ancestors. I came into this world in 1953 replete with electricity, and modern medicine at the dawn…
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San Francisco considers new tolls.. to cross town.
A bit of Friday morning delight. From the Sacramento Bee: San Francisco transportation officials are considering charging drivers to cross downtown and the city’s southern border with San Mateo County. Among the ideas under consideration is a $6 charge to leave the city’s northeast sector, which includes the Financial District, weekdays between 3:30 and 6:30…
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Doctor Zero: “Hopelessness and Stasis”
The soulful stylings of Doctor Zero, on the President’s September 20, 2010 Townhall Meeting in Washington D.C. Responding to a question about the perception of business leaders that his policies are hostile toward them, Obama field tested a new meme about how the recession has really been over for a year: Well, first of all,…