Stalled Labor Pick Julie Su Lets Herself Off the Hook for California’s Missing Billions
Stalled Labor Pick Julie Su Lets Herself Off the Hook for California’s Missing Billions
For years, the state’s auditor had issued warnings about the unemployment office’s vulnerabilities. No one, certainly not Su, acted on that intelligence. Thirteen months after President Biden announced it was his “honor to nominate Julie Su to be our country’s next Secretary of Labor,” there’s good news, bad news, and even worse bad news to report. Among those...
By Will Swaim
Golden State Budget Fantasy
Golden State Budget Fantasy
Gavin Newsom once bragged of a surplus, but California is underwater. While finalizing the upcoming fiscal year’s state budget back in May 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom boasted of an extraordinary projected surplus: $97 billion. The governor immediately collaborated with an enthusiastic state legislature to spend it all. Of course, new spending on new programs...
By Edward Ring
California’s Deficit: Bring Your Alibis
California’s Deficit: Bring Your Alibis
Governor Gavin Newsom helped create — and is now faced with — the biggest budget deficit in Golden State history. In the summer of 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom, apparently high on the smell of cash, announced that California had just smashed through the state-budget equivalent of the first four-minute mile: a one-year surplus of $100...
By Will Swaim
Parent advocates strike back
Parent advocates strike back
It’s easy to understand why California’s public schools are seeing a mass exodus of students and families. The once-Golden State continues to have some of the worst student math and reading scores in the nation. Yet schools chief Tony Thurmond and Gov. Gavin Newsom seem more concerned about bogus “book bans” and helping kids secretly change their gender at...
By California Policy Center
The Political Class Is An Industry
The Political Class Is An Industry
with minor leagues and pre-election financial support networks Elected officials start out on financial support, long before they’re elected. Here’s one example to show how it works. In 2018, the ACLU of Southern California filed a class action lawsuit against Riverside County, alleging that a county program to intervene in the lives of at-risk youth was oppressive...
By Chris Bray
California Has Largest Unrestricted Net Deficit in US
California Has Largest Unrestricted Net Deficit in US
The California State Controller released the audit of California’s financial statements, performed by the State Auditor for the year ending June 30, 2022, on March 15. The annual comprehensive financial report should have been issued some 15 months sooner. Looking at the document, we are immediately informed on the first page of the Report Overview...
By John Moorlach
Long Overdue Financial Report for California Brings Bad News
Long Overdue Financial Report for California Brings Bad News
When it comes to the reporting of the accounting of our 50 states, two main concerns can be observed. The first is the delinquency rate of several states. For the fiscal year June 30, 2022, 20 states released their audited financial statements within six months. There are four states that deviate from the norm, with...
By John Moorlach
The Cost of Offshore Wind vs. Carbon Sequestration
The Cost of Offshore Wind vs. Carbon Sequestration
The California Energy Commission (CEC) has set planning goals for floating offshore wind turbines, calling for between 2 and 5 gigawatts of “nameplate capacity” operating by 2030, and 25 gigawatts by 2045. Note “floating.” Unlike off the East Coast, or the North Sea, deep waters in California lie immediately offshore. So offshore wind in California...
By Edward Ring
Drain the Reservoirs, Return California’s Stolen Land
Drain the Reservoirs, Return California’s Stolen Land
The logical extension of California’s environmentalist policies is to end civilization as we know it. But California’s progressive elites are not crazy or stupid. So what is their actual motivation? The destruction of dams on the Klamath River provides an encouraging precedent for progressives throughout California. As was breathlessly reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere, indigenous...
By Edward Ring
Social Media Use for Public Officials – An Explainer Based on Lindke V. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliff V. Garnier
Social Media Use for Public Officials – An Explainer Based on Lindke V. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliff V. Garnier
Executive Summary In Lindke v. Freed, the United States Supreme Court adopted a two-part test to determine whether a public official’s conduct on social media rises to state action for purposes of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (“Section 1983”). The Court evaluated the question of when social media use crosses the line from private action to...
By Julie Hamill
The Potential of Carbon Sequestration
The Potential of Carbon Sequestration
While the confirmed skeptic will consider Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) to be the ultimate waste of money, it nonetheless is happening. Billions of dollars have already been committed, with no end in sight. Regardless of how one might judge its necessity, having some facts about CCS belongs in any serious discussion about California’s energy...
By Edward Ring
California’s Dubious Megaprojects
California’s Dubious Megaprojects
It would be inaccurate to suggest that California’s state legislature can no longer think big. They can, and as such they are carrying on a tradition that two generations ago gave us the best universities in the world, expressways and freeways that helped catalyze a boom that lasted for decades, and the most remarkable system...
By Edward Ring
Which Bay Area Cities Need to Improve Their Fiscal Status?
Which Bay Area Cities Need to Improve Their Fiscal Status?
The state of California has 58 counties and 482 cities. To provide manageable fiscal rankings, I’ve divided the state into eight regions, closely following the districts established by Caltrans. The Bay Area, Caltrans District 4, has 101 cities. The rankings for 2020 are compared to those of 2019 in the graph below. For an explanation...
By John Moorlach
