Gavin Newsom is lost. He hasn’t a clue how to fix California’s housing problem – something that he promised to do three years ago, when he ran for Governor. And, the crisis gets worse every day.

What Newsom said he would do is to clear the way so that the state would produce about 500,000 housing units per year through 2025. Instead, California reports annual housing starts haven’t exceeded 115,000 in several years.

His budget for next year falls well short of helping, as well. After hearing the plaintive appeals for more money from the many poverty pimps surrounding housing programs the Governor proposes an $8.2 billion for them. (To this a skeptical Legislative Analyst warns that the state ought to be more directly funding the differing strategies of local governments, not state programs.)

The FY 2021-2022 budget also includes – presumably to improve California’s falling rate of homeownership – $3 billion to provide low-interest loans. Doesn’t Newsom know interest rates have never been as low as they are today and we may not need mortgage assistance right now? Doesn’t he know that getting cash for the down payment is the… Read More

Governor Newsom is maneuvering in every way he can to make sure he wins the recall vote. Don’t doubt the state reopening on June 15th wasn’t a political decision. There are many reasons to consider voting to replace the Governor. Let me convey a tale of incompetence that is symptomatic of why this state is a disaster for its residents and we need someone in charge who has a clue.

You may be familiar with PPP loans. Billions of dollars were provided by the federal government to small business employers in 2020 with the idea that the businesses use the monies to keep their employees on staff. At the time the program was established the idea was that the employers would keep their staff together for a quick bounce back after a couple months of pandemic. Of course, that plan failed because the pandemic ended up stretching out months longer than initially anticipated. But millions of Americans received salaries as opposed to unemployment benefits.

The federal government determined last December that the proceeds of the loans were not taxable, and the related expenses would still be deductible. Immediately after that, the state government of California decided that… Read More

As I write this column I’m reminded of a weekend some time ago when – then a lobbyist for homebuilders – I set out to write a regular commentary but was distracted by the news of Ronald Reagan’s death. Seventeen years have ensued since I heard of the great man’s passing but I remember the moment vividly.

I’m not far now from where I sat that day, watching the ceremony celebrating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when the television broadcast was interrupted by the news from Los Angeles. Ronald Reagan was dead. I was initially writing about a growing cultural bias against new housing among state lawmakers (regrettably, little has changed) then immediately shifted gears.

I remember I couldn’t get over the irony of the greatest cheerleader of the fight for freedom in Europe dying just before the day in June when we commemorate the heroics of the men and women who liberated France in 1944. The moment was vastly too great a part of our history for me not to write about it so I kept on writing. I wrote:

As sad as it was, President Reagan’s death fittingly coincided with the remembrance of a signal event in American history. Some… Read More

Breaking Bad:California vs. the Other States

by Richard Rider – Chairman, San Diego Tax Fighters

Version 3.43 Revised: 2 June, 2021

Online version at:www.TinyURL.com/CA-vs-other-states Email:RRider92131@gmail.com

Phone: 858-530-3027

Rider Blog:… Read More

There are several pandemic scams out there. Cure promises, fake virus tests, Medicare rip-offs, phony PPP applications and price gouging (for everything from hand sanitizer to toilet paper) are just some of the frauds.

But, few compare to the banality of the WELL Health building certification by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). The IWBI, which was established ten years ago – at the apex of the “greenbuilding” era (an anti global-warming brainchild of the past) – says its building certification affirms, on the basis of satisfying ten criteria, the building is safe to the public.

Those ten criteria are 1) air quality; 2) water quality; 3) nourishment; 4) lighting; 5) movement; 6) thermal comfort; 7) materials; 8) mind; 9) community; and 10) innovation. Huh?

The certification is the latest in a decades-long campaign by environmental activists to dictate the building or retrofitting of business facilities and residences according to a strict “greenbuilding” formula.

It would understandable if the IWBI certification was the only game in town. Unfortunately, it’s not. There are several certifications and, not… Read More

When rioting, looting and murder was being endorsed last year by many elected officials in the name of equity, a little noticed phenomenon happened. Jewish facilities were being defaced in anti-Semitic attacks. Throughout this period, my synagogue (led by Rabbis Yoshi Zweiback and Ron Stern) was putting out regular pronouncements about matters in the Black community. When I pointed out that as a Jewish Temple that we should always focus on the needs of the Jews first, Zweiback, the head rabbi, told me “This is their time.” Maybe the Jewish Left has come to realize this is the Jews’ time. It seems to always be the Jews time.

Unfortunately, little is heard from Democrat elected officials about the blatant violence against Jews. Part of that may come from the fact their elected leader, Joe Biden, is in the direct line of fire for causing this recent outbreak. In the Democrats’ universe where the need is to do exactly the opposite of the previous administration, they have cozied up to Iran and their surrogates Hamas by negotiating with the first and funding the second.

After the success of the Abraham Accords, I had stated there remained just two… Read More

The operation of the IRS is something with which I am vaguely familiar having dealt with them regularly for over 40 years. President Biden wants to give the agency more money on the proposition that rich people and corporations cheat on their taxes. He apparently believes that greater enforcement will bring in $700 billion (Treasury Dept estimate) over the next decade. And Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are my personal friends.

Let’s start with how the agency got in this fix. President Obama used the agency to squash applications for non-profit groups during his first term. Remember his henchman, Lois Lerner? The Republicans said if the agency has money for that garbage, then they have too much money. Thus, the agency lost funding and never got it back.

The Washington Post decided Biden’s plan made sense; thus, they were going to try and convince the world. They worked with five prior IRS Commissioners to produce an Opinion piece endorsing Biden’s plan. Three of the Commissioners were from the last century. In tax terms, these three may as well be Fred Flintstone given how frequently radical tax changes occur. At least they are still alive and are tax… Read More

As “critical race theory” (CRT) seeps into more and more into school curricula some state governments are fighting back. Capital cities all across the nation have been busy the past month introducing and passing legislation that discourages the practice of teaching divisive theories like CRT in public schools.

CRT began as a training exercise for school teachers and asserts that the U.S. has a despicable racial past that needs to be systemically corrected. It also says if you’re white you are inherently racist. The controversial and dissonant theory got a significant boost when a writer for New York Times Magazine, Nikole Hannah-Jones, originated a doctrine dubbed the “1619 Project” (the Project).

The Project postulates, among other things, that the history of the U.S. began not in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was published, but in 1619 when the first slave ship arrived. Americans wanted to begin the nation not to form a more perfect union, the Project says, but to preserve slavery.

The dangerous, Marx-inspired CRT affirms this. It too proclaims America is inherently and systematically racist. It promotes the idea that it’s… Read More