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…
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“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…
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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…
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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…
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The recently passed federal tax bill lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent, reduces rates in five of the seven tax brackets, and according to the New York Times will cut taxes for about 75 percent of filers in 2018. The bill also caps the amount of state taxes filers can deduct on their federal…
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As California politicians complain about the lack of affordable housing, a new state study claims the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as a Los Angeles Times report put it, “doesn’t block development from actually happening.” A working family looking for affordable housing in California should have more than a reasonable doubt. The claim that…
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As fires rage in southern California, driving nearly 90,000 people from their homes, recurring governor Jerry Brown explains that that because of climate change such fires could be “the new normal” and “this could be something that happens every year or every few years.” As usual, the governor ignores a key back story. The…
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Besides Hollywood (Harvey Weinstein), Congress (Al Franken), and the media (Matt Lauer), to name only a few, it turns out that sexual abuse has been thriving in the California legislature. Capitol staffer Elise Flynn Gyore charged that assemblyman Raul Bocanegra groped her at a public event in 2009. Faced with this and other accusations,…
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In housing, California has been in the throes of what Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, calls an “affordability crisis.” This year governor Jerry Brown signed a batch of bills designed to end the crisis and, as Assemblyman Richard Bloom put it, “make housing affordable again.” Those currently priced out of the market might recall past…
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The California Supreme Court has ruled that the state can impose a contract on employers, in the style of Don Corleone, a deal they can’t refuse. News stories hailed the unanimous ruling as a victory for “farmworkers” but it isn’t. The case deals with Gerawan Farming, a fruit grower in Fresno and Madera counties….
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