As we noted in 2013, California’s government employee unions are so confident of their power that they demonstrate in front of the capitol chanting “This is our house!” They were right then and are still right now, as a Sacramento Bee editorial explains. Senate Bill 376 by Ricardo Lara is “a sop to the…
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We have been keeping track, so to speak, of California’s vaunted “Bullet Train,” officially the state’s High-Speed Rail project. But as it turns out, “high speed” is something of a misnomer, as William Bigelow notes on Breitbart. The first actual construction on the project is a viaduct over the Fresno River, nowhere near the…
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Covered California, the Golden State’s wholly owned subsidiary of Obamacare, has been cancelling the coverage when people report changes in their income, changing their eligibility for tax credits. This problem exposes people to severe tax penalties but Covered California bosses blame it on their $454 million computer system. On the other hand, those turning…
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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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California’s vaunted $68 billion “bullet train” is a big hit with politicians eager as always to spend taxpayers’ money. The bullet train, however, will be slower and more expensive than air travel, and in a high-tech state few if any commuters are panting for an essentially 19th century form of transportation. Sold as a…
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TAX BILL: OPEN IMMEDIATELY. Thus reads the envelope of the property tax bills now showing up in mailboxes. Note the imperative mood, the tone of “let’s hand over the wallet, Jack.” While embattled taxpayers deal with this bill, Robert Gutierrez of the California Taxpayers Association offers a few points to ponder. “Californians are paying…
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As one headline put it, “Health Care Site is Doing Better,” something one would say of a child still in bed with a fever. But even before December 1, when everything was supposed to be fixed, the federal health care website remained troubled. This news came from the New York Times, which was willing…
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UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, and Aetna, another major insurer, recently abandoned California’s individual health insurance market. This ran as a business story but it’s really about Obamacare. The companies’ departure from the individual market is clearly a response to the Affordable Care Act, and that departure has already made it harder…
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Since the Sandy Hook massacre last year, California has introduced more than a dozen gun-control measures, headed by SB140 from state senator Mark Leno a San Francisco Democrat. This bill will confiscate handguns and assault rifles from some 20,000 Californians who acquired them legally but then through criminal convictions, restraining orders and mental illness…
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The Tax and Revenue Committee of the California Assembly will soon hear AB 927 authored by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi. The measure allows various tax credits against the taxes imposed by the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law: This bill would, under both laws, for taxable years beginning on or after January…
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