As we recently noted, California’s Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog, reported that the state cannot even document whether or not the $13.2 billion raised by Proposition 63 improved Californians’ lives. That is of interest because the 2004 measure, sponsored by Sen. Darrell Steinberg, was supposed to keep people off the street, out of…
Read More »
When government says it’s going to be “neutral” about something, taxpayers can’t go wrong thinking that precisely the opposite is the case. Consider, for example, the latest government power grab, disguised as “Internet Neutrality.” If government were indeed neutral it would leave the Internet alone. But under Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler, government…
Read More »
The U.S. Department of Energy claims lineage from the Manhattan Project of World War II, and its official history cites none other than Albert Einstein. Actually, the DOE dates its inception from 1977: “[T]he twelfth cabinet-level department brought together for the first time within one agency two programmatic traditions that had long coexisted within…
Read More »
Californians are paying off $5 billion in cost overruns on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, which came in, count ‘em, ten years late, with its safety still in doubt. Governor Jerry Brown wants to spend $68 billion on a “bullet train” that would be slower and more expensive than air travel. He also wants…
Read More »
As we have noted several times, the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was $5 billion over budget and, count ‘em, ten years late. That’s a full decade but after all that time and money, safety issues linger with faulty welds and such, which California governor Jerry Brown dismissed with his…
Read More »
What do taxpayers get for $13.2 billion in government spending on mental health? Not much, according to a new report by California’s Little Hoover Commission. In fact, as David Siders explains in the Sacramento Bee, the state cannot even document whether the $13.2 billion even improved any Californians’ lives. That is the legacy of…
Read More »
California governor Jerry Brown derides critics as “declinists,” but when it comes to the cost of government, he’s definitely an increasist. As Jon Ortiz and Phillip Reese note in the Sacramento Bee, last year California paid out $1.1 billion more to state employees than the year before. The new tab comes to $16.43 billion,…
Read More »
In recent years, government has been ramping up the deployment of federal agencies against the very citizens who pay for them. The National Security Agency, for example, has been conducting massive surveillance operations against innocent Americans. The Internal Revenue Service has been deployed against groups that favor smaller government and lower taxes. Now the…
Read More »
“People who owe old debts to the Social Security Administration are getting a reprieve this tax season,” explains Fox News. “The federal government won’t be seizing their tax refunds.” Before anybody starts celebrating, that requires some clarification. As we noted, the “debts” in question are highly dubious. Mary Grice, now 58, was four years…
Read More »
As California Senate boss, Darrell Steinberg compiled quite a record of abuse and waste. In 2012, for example, he killed the California Channel’s live broadcast of hearings on four ballot measures dealing with taxes and spending, depriving voters of vital information. He compounded this censorship by claiming: “I pride myself on being open and…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |