Would you commit to buy a car, a house or even a jacket without knowing the price? Unless you are a member of the one percent, chances are, you want to know what it will cost you before you make a purchase.

But what about ballot measures that can cost every citizen hundreds or even thousands of dollars? At the state level, the Legislative Analyst’s Office has the responsibility to provide a “fiscal impact” analysis – that is, information to voters as to the costs to taxpayers of passing a proposition.

But this isn’t currently required at the local level. And those backing attractive sounding, but costly, measures like it that way. They prefer to keep the public in the dark. If a county measure promises to create new parks in every neighborhood, it may sound great, but taxpayers should know what it will cost them before they cast a vote.

To read the entire column click here http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/great-idea-put-price-tag-on-ballot-measures/… Read More

Cigarettes are now illegal in San Francisco for anyone under 21, and soon to be throughout California.

The Sanctuary City by the Bay has a long list of sanctioned banned items: trans fats, the circus,sugary sodas, the Happy Meal and free toy, plastic bags, plastic water bottles, goldfish, baby chickens and ducklings, chewing tobacco, hollow-point bullets, firearms in advertising, wood burning stoves, drones, the Segway, hoverboards, and they tried to ban circumcision.

The list of banned items was all done in the name of public health. But these same San Francisco Nanny-Supervisors support public urination, needle exchanges, public nudity, pot smoking, free condoms, abortion… Read More

The State of California has had windfall revenues for the past three years. At the same time, the State has shortchanged the developmentally disadvantaged and under-funded Medi-Cal so much that most doctors and other health care professionals won’t accept it.

So what is the legislature doing with the billions of dollars of surpluses currently flowing into Sacramento?

They have given raises to public employees. They have also ignored advice from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst Office to eliminate thousands of public employees that are not needed, a move that would… Read More

I don’t support Donald Trump.

Trump’s tough talk is scant cover for a shallow, disengaged intellect. He has shown astonishing dishonesty on even the most petty issues. His affable embrace of anyone who flatters him shows a desperate and easily manipulated hunger for celebrity accolades. His sudden and convenient conversion on a host of issues is more than little suspect – it shows either a mercenary malleability or simple deceit. And, his transparently feigned faith is offensive.

But if Trump wins a majority of Republican voters and “party leaders” try to scheme away the nomination, it won’t be the “short fingered vulgarian” who tears the party apart – it will be party elites who claim to be trying to save it.

A Trump win is hardly a foregone conclusion, but ignoring – or worse yet, dismissing – the real and visceral issues driving Trump’s support would be a terrible mistake and a betrayal to the principles of self-governance.

The issues driving voters to him have very little to do with Trump and everything to do with the failings of GOP leaders… Read More

Last June Governor Brown called a special session for his managed healthcare organization tax deal — the other for tax increases to fund transportation infrastructure. Special sessions may as well be called “transparency obfuscation and fair process elimination” tools. In these sessions the normal legislative rules and deadlines do not apply.

With the passage and signing of the new MCO tax, that first special session is over, right? WRONG.

It turns out that that special session on the MCO tax was not adjourned — it is still very much… Read More

Two Assembly bills were just introduced addressing labor union transparency and designed to offer a choice of labor unions, and to force unions to open up their books.

Assemblywoman ShannonGrove, R-Bakersfield, is working with union employees who have been fighting the Service Employees International Union for transparency, and they’ve been educating members of their option to opt out of paying the share of dues that is used for political purposes. This is information the Union does not tell it’s members.

The bills are on behalf of the workers. Most media has reported that the bills are an attack on… Read More

The 2016 tax filing deadline is now just one month away. Which makes it timely to point out how unfair our tax system is to middle class workers who want to prepare for their retirements. It is also timely to explain how there is a completely different set of retirement rules, far more favorable, that apply to unionized government workers.

If you are a member of the emerging “gig economy,” or a sole proprietor running a small business, or an independent contractor, and if you are reasonably successful, then you paying nearly 50% of every extra dollar you earn in taxes. The following table showsthe marginal tax burden for independent contractors who earned more than $81.5K and less than $118.5K in 2015:

Marginal Tax Rate for Independent Contractors (for 2015 earnings > $81.5K and < $118.5K)

The… Read More

Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to give the Legislature more oversight over the California Air Resources Board. Some say lawmakers then retributively amended language out of Senate Bill 350 by Sen. Pres. Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, which was Brown’s proposal for a 50 percent cut in petroleum use for transportation that the CARB was all set to enforce.

The CARB holds cap-and-trade auctions, which extort and extract money from California businesses deemed polluters by the state. In his 2016 budget, Gov. Brown carved out more than $1 billionof cap-and-trade revenueto pay for his High Speed Train to nowhere.

The high-speed rail project, expected to be finished in 2033, was originally supposed travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes. That was the ballot initiative promise in 2009, which intoxicated voters who narrowly… Read More