More is never enough for California politicians, as evidenced by our highest-in-the-nation taxes. The once-Golden State of opportunity and innovation ranks 48th in the Tax Foundation’s 2018StateBusiness Tax Climate Index. Again. Back in 2012I wrote aboutour lousy 48th ranking, and that was before Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 passed, which dramatically increased sales and income taxes. And it was before the California Legislature passed yet another massive gas/diesel tax on the state’s drivers, making California’s the highest gas taxes in the nation.

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Environmentalists claim global warming can be mitigated, but only if humans are forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This pseudo-science is what California’s leftist politicians have adopted to control human activity, and the unelected bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board based its cap-and-trade carbon auction program on.

Now, seven California municipalities – four cities and three counties – are suingExxon MobilCorp.and… Read More

The release of a 584-page report by the Independent Forensic Team (IFT) ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission foreshadows potentially significant liability for the State of California. One can only hope that Governor Brown and liberal Democrats in the Capitol, who seem more interested in California becoming the home of the “Resistance” to the Trump Administration, will make a priority of restoring those damaged by the State’s failures.

While this may seem a gratuitous partisan “shot” at the party controlling the levers of the state’s bureaucracies, it is based on some historical precedent set in the state’s treatment of victims of the past failures of California’s flood control systems.

Most remember the crisis last February involving the collapse of the Oroville Dam spillways and the emergency exodus of nearly 200,000 Californians fleeing a potential disaster. We heard last month nearly 500 cities, farmers, and residents have filed damage claims totaling more than $1.2 billion against the State. Naturally, according to recent reports, not one claim has been settled nor has there been any payment of damages.

What may not be… Read More

Voters legalized pot several years ago in Colorado and Washington State. They were promised increased tax revenue increases and better-educated children for their vote. For the love of money and claims of liberty, disasters are now unfolding in both states.

Now California is embarking on likely the same disastrous path, if not worse, despite copious amounts of destructive evidence.

A Taxing Problem

California voters approvedProposition 64, the “California Marijuana Legalization Initiative,” in November of 2016. It legalized recreational marijuana for Californians aged 21 years or older. It also created two new excise taxes on marijuana:

Now that “recreational pot” is “legal” in California, now is a good time to ask a few questions as we assess this change in policy and drug use climbs.

Will you feel safer driving on our roads and freeways while many more people are getting high each day in California, and some of them will be driving on the same roads?

With pot’s negative stigma falling away, will your children, or other children in your neighborhood be more, or less, likely to try pot? Will people under the age of 18 really have no access to “legal” pot?

Will there be more, or fewer, workplace accidents?

Will the cost of car insurance go up, or down, as the number of “driving while high” accidents rises?

Will it become more, or less, desirable to live in California as the number of people getting stoned each day climbs?

Every one of these questions is an important matter of public policy – and each one directly relates to every Californian regardless of whether one consumes pot or not. The decision of voters, at the misguided urging of people like Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, carries a heavy price tag downplayed or ignored by proponents of legalized… Read More

Pardonne moi, Governor Jerry Brown, but California is a cesspool and you are giving absolution to criminals.

Brown’s smug ‘burn it down and leave’ attitude, together with all of the left, is based on the self-righteous belief that more than half of the country does not know what’s good for them – and liberals and leftists do. They hate us for not aspiring to their glamorous and important lives, and then feel compelled to tell us how to live.

Burn it Down and Leave

Because of Governor Jerry Brown’s ineptitude, incompetence and corruption, Californians are facing a dangerous and uncertain future. Because Jerry Brown would not address the issues a sincere governor must, his chosen distractions like climate change and criminal pardons are costing us dearly. On his way to United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany in November, Brown stopped by the Vatican to chat up like-minded climate change thought leaders, and said, “It… Read More

As is my custom for more than a decade now, on this eve…

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of… Read More

With the amazing tax reform package finally passed, people of means — even of modest means (ESPECIALLY those of modest means) — need to consider taking some tax-saving steps NOW before 2017 is over. These steps are particularly important for my biggest demographic audience — Californians.

Below is an excellent article (one of many such articles) with major tax-saving suggestions.

http://www.nextavenue.org/year-end-tax-moves-tax-law/

But the two strategies that I want to focus on here are:

1. Paying your property and state income taxes before 31 December.

2. Double or triple your charitable contributions before the end of the year (and not pay any next year). Or be even more clever than that (read on).

First the good news. Contrary to what the media has been telling us, MOST of us WILL pay lower federal income taxes in the next few years –at least through 2020. After that, it’s more and more likely that D.C. goes back into their preferred tax-raising mode.

The new law’s bigger standard deduction coupled with lower… Read More