June 6 will mark 40 years since California voters passed the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, more commonly known as Proposition 13. As its primary backers recall, “property taxes were out of control. People were losing their homes because they could not pay their property taxes, yet government did nothing to help them.”…
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Former governor George Deukmejian recently passed away at 89. Many Californians have little memory of the Golden State’s 35th governor, who served from 1983 to 1992. Millennials and such may be unaware that Deukmejian was the last California governor to return surplus funds directly to taxpayers in the form of a check. In 1987,…
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Even Jerry Brown knows that government employee pensions have put California in a bad place. Prospects for reform recently took a hit when the Senate Public Employee Retirement Committee killed John Moorlach’s SB 1031 and 1032, which would have let local governments avoid CalPERS termination fees and limited cost-of-living hikes for future employees. The…
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As we noted the estimated cost to build California’s bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles has doubled to $77.3 billion and could almost triple to $98.1 billion. Governor Jerry Brown is now on record what he thinks of it. “This is bullshit,” he told reporters in Sacramento on March 19. “I’m so…
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As we noted in January, costs for Jerry Brown’s vaunted high-speed rail project jumped by $2.8 billion to $10.6 billion, just for the stretch from Madera to Bakersfield. “It’s horrifying when you look at the amount of money we’re going to have to reinvest to make this program work,” exclaimed bullet-train board member Ernest…
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Proposition 57, California’s 2016 Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act championed by governor Jerry Brown, expanded parole possibilities for nonviolent offenders and barred prosecutors from directly filing juvenile cases in adult court. This measure was supposed to reduce the prison population and save taxpayers money. Instead it burns up more taxpayer dollars and gives some…
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California assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, a high-profile player with the #MeToo movement, is now facing allegations of sexual misconduct conduct. Two men charge that Garcia groped them, in one case after making an explicit sexual proposition. Another says he was fired after declining to play “spin the bottle” with Garcia. She has taken unpaid leave…
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As we noted, the Republicans’ tax bill lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent and according to the New York Times it will cut taxes for about 75 percent of filers in 2018. That is good news for taxpayers, who would do well to consider realities that have not changed, such as…
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This week Elon Musk launched his Falcon Heavy skyward, with a Tesla roadster along for the ride. A power pack of 27 Merlin engines boosted the takeoff with five million pounds of thrust, the most by a conventional rocket since the Saturn V moon mission. As USA Today reported, “within a half-hour of the…
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According to an NBC report by Jaxon Van Derbeken, “Caltrans is investigating whether microscopic organisms are attacking critical welds on the submerged foundation of the new Bay Bridge tower, potentially endangering the projected 150-year lifespan of the troubled $6.4 billion structure.” Brian Maroney, Caltrans’ chief engineer on the project, told NBC that experts report…
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