California is hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, and governor Jerry Brown is hailing the boost as a matter of “economic justice.” As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee recalls, Brown had previously resisted this move and argued for a hike to $13 an hour. But then, “Brown not only…
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Shirley Hufstedler, the nation’s first federal Education Secretary, has passed away at 90. That news might surprise some, and not just the younger set, who imagined that the first federal education secretary appeared way back in 1776. There wasn’t one, because the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, domain over education. Under these…
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Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released a report examining the state of the subsidies that would be paid out to people who purchased health insurance through the government’s Affordable Care Act exchanges in each state over the years from 2016 through 2026. CBO reports typically make for some pretty dry reading, so we’re…
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As we noted, California State Auditor Elaine Howle has been riding herd on Caltrans for shoddy maintenance practices that promote waste, fraud and abuse. Now the auditor turns attention to the University of California in a new report charging that UC admissions and financial decisions have disadvantaged California’s own resident students. Over the past…
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We came across a really interesting example that exemplifies the difference in the way people in the private sector think versus how people who work for government think! In the private sector, thanks to modern computing technologies, many businesses are able to automate a vital portion of their businesses: the taking of orders for…
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“More bureaucracy isn’t a solution for homelessness.” That is the kind of headline readers would expect in a libertarian publication. It’s actually the headline of the lead editorial in the March 24 edition of The Sacramento Bee, the newspaper of record in California’s capital. Since this publication rarely criticizes bureaucracy, taxpayers will find the…
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Last year, as part of the 2-year budget/debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Obama and former House Speaker John Boehner, spending on national defense was supposed to increase. Here’s what Military Times wrote at the time: The White House and Congress late Monday agreed to a budget deal that would provide financial relief to…
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In light of the ongoing drought, Californians are grateful for the storms that have been pounding the Golden State. It’s a slightly different story, however, down at the Sacramento headquarters of the state Board of Equalization. As Jon Ortiz notes in the Sacramento Bee the “24-story money pit” sprung two leaks during recent heavy…
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Something is deeply amiss where President Obama’s latest proposed spending for Health Care Services is concerned. Previously, we noted the remarkable growth in the amount of spending that President Obama has proposed for the line item (literally Line 551 of Historical Table 3.2) that includes expenditures for the Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (more…
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We’ve just updated the MyGovCost calculator to incorporate all the new federal government spending that President Obama has proposed and the Congressional Budget Office really anticipates in the future! What we found in doing the analysis for the latest budget is that much of what President Obama has proposed is something of a smoke…
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