On Thursday, December 28, 2017, a Los Angeles publication mailed me a check via the United States Postal Service. I received the check on January 18, 2018, a full 21 days after it had been mailed, so the cost worked out to just pennies a day. On the other hand, in 21 days I…
Read More »
The latest episode of federal government shutdown theater turned out to be a total bust! Hardly anybody outside of Washington D.C. even noticed, and now, it’s all over—at least for a few more weeks. The Washington Post reports on the sudden demise of the 19th federal government shutdown since 1974’s Budget and Impoundment Control…
Read More »
Californians pay the highest income and sales taxes in the United States, and the government recently piled on a $5.2 billion tax on gasoline, diesel fuel and vehicle fees. Taxpayers recently got some clues about what the state will do with all that money. According to the state controller, the state is bulking up…
Read More »
Late on Friday, January 19, 2018, politicians in the U.S. Congress failed for the nineteenth time in the last 42 years to approve a resolution that would allow the U.S. government to continue borrowing money to support all of the spending that they’ve mandated. As a result, nonessential federal government employees have been directed…
Read More »
For years, bureaucrats at U.S. government agencies have been involved in unlawful schemes to pass off significant parts of their workload to contractors who are not bound by the restrictions of the U.S. Constitution. That’s the gist of a startling claim made by Robert J. Hanrahan Jr., an employee of the National Nuclear Security…
Read More »
“A slew of delays and higher-than-expected costs are driving the anticipated price of high-speed rail construction in the central San Joaquin Valley by more than one-third, to about $10.6 billion,” writes Tim Sheehan in the Fresno Bee. “That’s a $2.8 billion jump from the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s estimate in 2016 of $7.8 billion…
Read More »
Last year, the Thomas fire in California’s central coast region made the national news night, after night, after night, as it became the biggest fire in state history. Combined with several other outsized wildfires, 2017 shattered state records for both wildfire-related losses and the sheer amount of money spent to suppress them. What many…
Read More »
As we noted, the new federal tax bill caps the amount state taxes filers can deduct on their federal return at $10,000. That displeases California’s senate boss Kevin de Leon, whose Protect California Taxpayers Act will allow Californians to pay their state income taxes as though they were a charitable donation, and therefore fully…
Read More »
Like a kayak over a waterfall, the U.S. Congress is barreling toward another episode of government shutdown theater. Jordain Carney of The Hill explains: Lawmakers are scrambling to avoid a government shutdown as they barrel toward another funding deadline without a clear path forward. GOP leadership is remaining tightlipped about their plan, with Senate…
Read More »
Last February 7 during heavy rains the Oroville Dam’s concrete spillway failed, launching fears of a complete dam failure, and forcing the evacuation of 188,000 people. As it turned out, government engineers knew for decades that the alternate earthen spillway was unreliable but failed to reinforce it with concrete. As Rep. John Garamendi famously…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |