Many taxpayers have seen little economic gain in recent years but the salaries of government education bureaucrats “have exploded” as the Sacramento Bee reports. Sarah Koligian of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District gets $240,000 and Christopher Hoffman of Elk Grove Unified bags $330,951, more than the $324,029 of Sacramento State University boss Robert Nelson….
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Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual 10-year projection for the U.S. government’s budget and economic outlook. What makes this year’s outlook stand out from previous editions is that the CBO’s analysts have taken the effects of the significant tax cuts and spending increases that have recently passed into law into its…
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The April 11 written congressional testimony of Mark Zuckerberg is already available, and what the Facebook CEO told senators on April 10 is of considerable interest. It was “my mistake,” he said, that the Cambridge Analytica firm had purloined the data of 87 million Facebook users. Zuckerberg said he was sorry and was taking…
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Three weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bipartisan $1.3 billion spending bill that, because it eliminated the spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011, guarantees the return of the kind of annual trillion dollar budget deficits that characterized much of President Obama’s tenure in office. Perhaps…
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The squad came at dawn, Remington model 870 shotguns at the ready. They broke down the door, rushed in and handcuffed a man before shoving him into a police car. One might think they were after a terrorist, escaped convict, or murderer. In reality, this was a raid by the enforcement division of the…
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A trade war between the U.S. and China has ramped up in recent weeks, with both nations proposing new tariffs on the goods that each imports from the other in a series of tit-for-tat announcements. The Reuters news service however has been exploring a scenario where China’s role as a major creditor to the…
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The nearly bankrupt city of Hartford, the state capital of Connecticut, was bailed out by the fiscally troubled state government of Connecticut last week. Jenna Carlesso of the Hartford Courant describes the city’s bailout package that will avoid the city having to officially declare bankruptcy: The state’s bailout for Hartford has cleared its final…
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During its heyday, we tracked Covered California, the wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Affordable Care Act, through the services of health journalist Emily Bazar. She charted problems with the $454 million computer system, skyrocketing premiums, automatic cancellations, glitches with tax credits and such. All told, it added up to “widespread consumer misery,” particularly…
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Helicopters have proven their worth in fighting the wildfires that devastate California. Cal Fire, the state agency in charge of these operations, wants to replace its aging fleet of Huey helicopters. The legislature set aside the money and launched a bidding process that took two years, and as the Sacramento Bee reports, “rejected the…
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New scandals continue to erupt at the troubled U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on a regular basis, where in the latest gyration, David Shulkin, the head of the VA who had promised to implement serious reforms to improve the accountability of the department’s supervisors and staff, has now been shown the exit door. President…
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