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,…
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“The California High-Speed Rail Authority expects that millions among the traveling public will want to ride its sleek, 220-mph bullet trains between the Bay Area and the Los Angeles Basin when the system starts running in the early 2020s,” explains Tim Sheehan in the Fresno Bee. But when the project, launched with a 2008…
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This column alerts taxpayers to government waste, fraud and abuse, which abound at all levels. On those rare occasions when government bodies do the same, it’s certainly worth a look. As Jon Ortiz notes in the Sacramento Bee, “Nearly two-thirds of California state government data systems checked by auditors over two years contained unreliable…
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Some taxpayers remain unaware that government-employee unions run the state of California, but the evidence is not hard to find. Sure enough, Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, fired the first salvo to make a temporary tax hike permanent. “Proposition 30 is the best thing to happen to public education and…
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As we have noted, the new eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge came in $5 billion over budget, a full ten years late, and with doubts about its safety. One UC Berkeley structural engineering professor declines to use the new span. In Sacramento hearings on the safety theme, insiders called for a…
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This week voters in California will make the call on, count ‘em, 140 tax increases, from sales taxes to levies on soda and marijuana. If voters should wonder what is driving these tax increases, Mark Bucher of the California Policy Center has a few suggestions in his October 26 Sacramento Bee article headlined “Big…
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We have been following the story of the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which came in ten years late, $5 billion over budget, and with lingering safety concerns. As we noted, UC Berkeley structural engineering professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asi believes the bridge is unsafe and declines to use it. Governor Jerry…
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Opponents of California’s so-called “bullet train” went to court contending that the funding plan for $68 billion high-speed rail project violated the ballot measure voters approved in 2008. A Sacramento court agreed, but the Third District Court of Appeal overturned the ruling. Now, as the Sacramento Bee recently reported, the California Supreme Court let…
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“More than a year after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law he said would tamp down pension spiking,” noted Jon Ortiz in the Sacramento Bee, “the state’s biggest public pension fund is on the verge of adopting rules critics say would undermine its intent.” That pension fund, CalPERS, went on to adopt the new…
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As we have noted, California’s vaunted $68 billion “bullet train” is unpopular with taxpayers but a big hit with politicians, always eager for a new place to spend. So no surprise that the train to nowhere has already succeeded in bulking up government. Last year California’s High-Speed Rail Authority nearly tripled its staff to…
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