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Archive for September, 2015

Class-Action Lawsuit Targets Taxpayers


Wednesday September 30th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 11:58am PDT   •   0 Comments

In California Dreaming: Lessons on How to Resolve America’s Public Pension Crisis, Lawrence McQuillan discovered that California accounts for $550 billion to $750 billion of the $4.7 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities nationwide. The biggest player is the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) which in 1999 assured legislators that its investment earnings would…
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Pentagon Blimps a $2.7 Billion Bust


Monday September 28th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 10:24am PDT   •   0 Comments

The Pentagon deploys the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) to guard the nation from cruise missiles and other low-flying threats. JLENS primary contractor, Raytheon, says the system is proven capable and performing well right now, but as David Willman notes in the Los Angeles Times, taxpayers might have…
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Furnishing the EPA’s Environment


Monday September 28th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:21am PDT   •   0 Comments

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a lot of problems. For instance, the federal government department has had to tell its employees to stop defecating in its office hallways. The agency’s top expert on climate change is currently serving time in federal prison for collecting a paycheck for years without actually doing any work….
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Where Does All the Money Go Instead?


Saturday September 26th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:36am PDT   •   0 Comments

Jay Obernolte of the Los Angeles Times asked a question that nearly every California resident who has traveled in a car almost anywhere in the state at almost anytime in recent decades might also have asked: “Why are California’s roads so bad?” Given that Californians pay about 40% more in taxes and fees than…
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The Perks of Owning U.S. Debt


Wednesday September 23rd, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:49am PDT   •   0 Comments

What benefit does China get for being the largest single foreign lender of money to the U.S. federal government? Well, if Time magazine’s Rana Foroohar is right, the biggest benefit may be that China gets the right to set the course for U.S. monetary policy. Foroohar writes: In important ways, China now controls U.S….
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DoubleGovGreed.Con


Tuesday September 22nd, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 10:20am PDT   •   2 Comments

California is the least tax-friendly state according to new rankings from Kiplinger. Much of that unfriendliness is due to the 2012 Proposition 30, which imposed the highest income tax rate in America, 13.3 percent, and also raised the sales tax to 7.5 percent, also highest in the nation. Proposition 30 was pitched as a…
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California Capitol Not Taxpayers’ House


Friday September 18th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 4:27am PDT   •   2 Comments

As we noted in 2013, California’s government employee unions are so confident of their power that they demonstrate in front of the capitol chanting “This is our house!” They were right then and are still right now, as a Sacramento Bee editorial explains. Senate Bill 376 by Ricardo Lara is “a sop to the…
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Negative Dashboard Indicators for the U.S. National Debt


Thursday September 17th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:04am PDT   •   0 Comments

We’re always on the lookout for creative ways to describe the state of the U.S. national debt and the factors that affect it. Today’s exercise in data visualization comes to us via the Twitter feed of DonDraperClone, who has assembled several charts showing some of the biggest drivers of the U.S. government’s total public…
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GovEdPensions.Con


Tuesday September 15th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 5:42am PDT   •   0 Comments

As Lawrence McQuillan has observed, unfunded pension liabilities have soared to $4.7 trillion nationwide, and California accounts for $550 billion to $750 billion of the total. CalPERS, the Golden State’s biggest public pension fund, has authorized 99 types of special payments that count in pension calculations, but the only one that drew any objection…
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The Malady of Deficits and Self-Delusion


Monday September 14th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:22am PDT   •   1 Comment

The Washington Times reports on a dubious achievement by the U.S. government: In the first 11 months of fiscal year 2015, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government outpaced the first 11 months of all previous fiscal years, even after adjusting for inflation. The 2015 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2014, and…
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