We have been keeping track, so to speak, of California’s high-speed rail project, the vaunted “bullet train.” In February, we noted that farmers are not eager to sell the land the project needs. The alleged cost of $68 billion was already more than double the $33 billion estimate before California voters approved $9.95 billion…
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Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office published its 2016 Long Term Budget Outlook for the U.S. government. Investors Business Daily‘s John Merline identifies the main takeaway from this year’s edition of the CBO report. The nation’s long-term fiscal picture has grown considerably more dire over the past year, according to the latest forecast from the…
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In recent years, income equality has become an issue, with the discussion usually generating more heat than light. As Michael McGrady writes in The College Fix, income equality research has also become a lucrative pursuit. Drawing on a recent report from the California Policy Center, McGrady notes that several UC Berkeley economics professors who…
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Global Financial Data is a firm that maintains a big database the records lots of economic data going as far back as the year 1168. The firm recently produced the following chart showing the interest rates that the U.S. government has paid to its creditors on 10-Year debt securities issued by the U.S. Treasury…
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Yet another federal government trust fund supporting the welfare of America’s elderly population appears set to run out of money within the next 12 years. This time, it’s Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund which, when it runs out of money as projected in 2028, will shrink the amount of money that goes to help…
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The whopper government pension of Mike Wiley, outgoing boss of Sacramento Regional Transit, continues to make news, but not just because it draws on the RT operating budget. As Tony Bizjak notes in the Sacramento Bee, Wiley is eligible for a pension of $278,000, a full $48,000 more than Wiley’s final salary of $230,000…
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Last week, on June 29, 2016, President Obama signed a bill designed to help Puerto Rico’s government restructure its excessive debts into law – the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). CNN reports: On Thursday, President Obama signed a bill known as PROMESA (Spanish for “promise”) to help Puerto Rico get…
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The existence of perverse incentives explain a lot of the bad behavior that we see among government bureaucrats. A perverse incentive can be said to exist whenever an incentive to achieve a specific goal instead creates an unintended and undesirable result, which is often entirely contradictory to the intentions of the people who created…
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According to a report by Adam Ashton in the Sacramento Bee, California will net a large portion of Volkswagen’s $14.7 settlement for cheating on emissions. Some $10 billion will go to buy-back programs and $4.7 billion toward state and federal air-quality programs, and “California stands to gain $1.18 billion of that money.” Mary Nichols,…
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As we recently noted, the Regional Transit authority in California’s capital of Sacramento cut 20 administrative positions, saving taxpayers $1.5 million. In similar style, the salary of incoming business manager Henry Li is $14,000 less than that of outgoing boss Mike Wiley. Those reductions set a good example, but all is not well at…
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