Earlier this week, noted pension reformer John Moore published “The Mechanics of Pension Reform,” listing specific principles of pension reform. Moore’s article focuses on state policy; he intends to focus on local pension reform policies in a later article. The list he has produced for state legislators is quite detailed; here’s is a partial summary of highlights:

1 – Change control of public employee pension boards to politically neutral private institutions. Currently, government union operatives exert nearly absolute control over California’s 81 state and local government employee pension systems.

2 – Limit the total annual pension contribution by any government entity to a fixed percentage of pension eligible salary.

3 – Differentiate between annual salary and pension eligible salary to lower overall contributions. Stop counting annual wage increases as pension eligible.

4 – Eliminate collective bargaining for government workers.

5 – Prohibit legislative bodies from granting vested contract rights to pensions.

6 – Require agency in-house… Read More

A week after U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein threw what some are calling a hissy fit and blowing up months of negotiations by dozens of participants on crucial Western States’ water and drought legislation, Sen. Feinstein gamely put her football back on the tee Thursday and invited the Chair and Ranking Member of a key Senate Committee and other Western senators to try to kick it again. Lucy Van Pelt of Peanuts’ fame couldn’t act more smug and confident.

In an act of political cover designed to set the table for another kick, Feinstein enlisted the aid of eight other well-intentioned but mistaken senators to sign her December 16 joint letter addressed to Senate Energy and Natural Resources chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-WA). The letter calls for a new try at western drought legislation in… Read More

Once again, I find insightful observations (with statistical underpinnings) on Professor Mark Perry’s “Carpe Diem” blog. Here’s a common sense explanation of at least part of the recent years’ decline in U.S. household income.

Not surprisingly, as a greater percentage of people retire and/or go on “disability” (an increasingly abused government/court perk), the average/median household income declines.

http://www.aei.org/publication/some-demographic-trends-that-might-explain-the-stagnation-and-decline-in-us-household-income

Carpe Diem

… Read More

My nasty updated fact for the day — from my “CA vs. the Other States” fact sheet: www.TinyURL.com/CA-vs-other-states

NOTE: This online version of my fact sheet is never quite up to date (hard to change with each update). If you crave the latest dreary version of this fact sheet as a 2 page Word file, I can send it as an attachment.

CAresidentialelectricity costs an average of 40.7% more per kWh than the national average. CAcommercialrates are 66.5% higher. Forindustrialuse, CA electricity is an astonishing 94.4% higher than the national average (September, 2015).

The cost spread is steadily growing between CA and the national average. Our Golden State’s radical energy policies ensure that California’s disparity with other states will continue to grow for years to… Read More

A time-tested Christmas joke describes the four stages of life: First, you believe in Santa Clause. Second, you don’t believe in Santa Clause. Third, you are Santa Claus. Fourth, you look like Santa Claus.

As they look down from their lofty perches in the State Capitol, members of the political ruling class see taxpayers as perpetually being in the third stage, supplying a never ending supply of goodies (i.e., tax revenue) to be collected by lawmakers and bureaucrats, and kept, or redistributed, as they see fit. When taxpayers look back at the politicians, they see them in the juvenile first stage, naively believing in Santa Taxpayer who can effortlessly fulfill their every desire and whim.

Of course, taxpayers can best be described as being in the cynical second stage. They don’t believe in Santa Claus, they work hard, they understand there is no free lunch and they are wary of politicians who try to buy voter support with the money they have extracted from our wallets and pocketbooks. However, if Santa Claus does exist, here is a list of requests that taxpayers might send to the North Pole.

To read the entire column click here… Read More

The left keeps lamenting the shrinking middle class. And the middle class IS shrinking as a percentage of Americans. But here’s the the catch: Turns out that2/3 of the middle class losses are because they moved to “rich”!

Kudos to the REASON Foundation and Professor Mark Perry (who assembled the updated piece below) for sharing this insight. ——– http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-americas-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-into-higher-income-groups/ AEI

House Amendment 1 to HR 2029, Omnibus Spending Act,is the 2,000-plus page $1.15 trillion spending act to fund the government through September 30, 2016. Congressman Tom McClintock voted NO, and explains why.

“A bill of this complexity always has good and bad provisions, and the question comes down to whether in balance it moves the government in the right direction,” Rep. Tom McClintock, R-CA posted on his Congressional website Friday.

McClintock explains:

On the plus side: • It stops bailouts of insurance companies required by Obamacare. • It ends the oil-export ban on American petroleum. (Although it should be noted that the president has the authority to do so on his own, and in 13 months we are likely to have a president who will anyway). • It blocks the proposed IRS rule that would formalize the… Read More

The latest one year California population figures have been published (through 1 July, 2015). Some trends and facts are worth noting. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/dec/16/californias-population-grows-to-nearly-391-million/

California’s population is now about 39,100,000 million, an increase of 350,000 people — about a 0.9% increase for the 12 months.

The number of births was 507,000. We peaked at about 612,000 births in 1990, and have been gradually trending downward ever since — a trend all the more notable given that our state population was a tad under 30,000,000 in 1990. http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/projections/births/documents/2014BirthProj-Final.xlsx

The number of deaths (all ages) in that time period totaled 245,000. Given that the CA deaths in 2005 totaled 236,220, it appears that, even with an aging population, our death rate has slowed… Read More