California columnist Joe Mathews raises a great issue in aU-Top-ed — California’s problem of us increasingly paying more for less. It’s a major issue, especially with government services.

But then he fails miserably — not identifying the single biggest factor. In this case, he never addresses the principal reason why the cost of California government services are so high — and how that high cost impacts the quantity and quality of such services.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/oct/21/california-costs-economy-taxes/

The primary problem? We overpay and over-pension our CA state and local “public servants” — compared to other states, and especially compared to the California private sector. That unnecessary expense adversely impacts government’s ability to adequately deliver its services.

For instance, the average California firefighter is paid 60% more than paid firefighters in the other 49 states. CA cops are paid 56%… Read More

A stunning vote occurred at the October 20, 2015 meeting of the elected governing board of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, located in the eastern suburbs of San Diego (“East County”). To the dismay and outrage of construction union officials anticipating a 4-1 victory, the board voted 3-2 to table a motion to negotiate a Project Labor Agreement with unions until the college consulted with its independent citizens’ bond oversight committee.

Although the vote was a temporary setback for construction unions, its greater significance was its endorsement for a concept of taxpayer protection in California under duress in recent years. Three college board members, two of whom solidly supported a union Project Labor Agreement, declared publicly that their citizens’ bond oversight committee was valuable and important.

The Origins of Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committees

In November 2000, California voters heeded the pleas of a huge coalition of powerful interest groups and enacted Proposition 39. This statewide ballot measure changed the California Constitution by reducing the percentage threshold needed… Read More

The “controversy” surrounding student body elections at a San Francisco middle school after the principal confiscated the results because they weren’t diverse enough, is a phony-controversy. The principal is an ignoramus and should be fired.

Principal Lena Van Haren at Everett Middle School in San Francisco committed an egregious constitutional lesson blunder, while disenfranchising her student voters and candidates.

The Everett school principal sent an email to parents on Oct. 14 saying the results would not be released because the candidates that were elected as a whole do not represents the diversity of the school.

Her… Read More

European politicos got a rare inside view of political campaigns in Europe and the United States at a pivotal conference conducted this week by the prestigious Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Berlin.

The International Conference on Political Communication (IKPK) brings together a mix of American and European campaign experts for a discussion on the most interesting developments in the political world on both sides of the Atlantic. For Europeans who often receive a distorted view of American campaigns through the lens of their own media, the IKPK provided the more than 300 German political observers with the opportunity to hear directly from experts working in the field.

Conducted annually, the… Read More

Attending a high school reunion after more than a few decades ought to be a memorable experience for anyone. Hopefully the occasion is filled with warmth and remembrance, rekindled friendships, stories and laughs. But as our lives develop and we build our adult networks based on shared values and common professions, a high school reunion offers something else; a unique opportunity to meet people we knew very well and still care about, whose lives all went in completely different directions.

My high school classmates chosea diverse assortment of careers. Some became engineers, some went into sales, some are entrepreneurs; some work in high-tech, some in aerospace, others in construction. And some are teachers, some are police officers, and some are firefighters. Without any exceptions I could observe, all of them made conscientious choices, all of them worked hard, all of them were responsible with their savings and investments. And now they’ve reached the age where whatever retirement plans they made are unlikely to change much.

How to ensure government pensions are not blown up by the next sustained market downturn is a complex challenge, complicated further… Read More

People move for more freedom. States that have more freedom attract more businesses, more jobs and more workers.

According to the John Locke Foundation, freedom is based on fiscal policy, which measures taxes and budgetary measures, and generates 50 percent of a state’s score. Twenty percent each goes to education and to regulatory policies, and 10 percent to health care policy.

The ‘least free’ state according to the John Locke Foundation is New York, closely followed by California, then New Jersey, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

This would explain why California has a record number of residents who left the Golden State for other states during the last decade, according to new tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service. “About 5 million Californians left between 2004 and 2013,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Roughly 3.9 million people came here from other states during that period, for a net population loss of more than 1 million people.”

The IRS said this also resulted in a net… Read More

In California, exceptionally high firefighter pay and benefits makes “firehouse” firefighter positions coveted slots, with few openings and huge applicant interest. Couple that with a strong desire by existing firefighters to get their offspring and relatives hired (a.k.a. nepotism), and it’s a scenario ripe for corruption.Here’s one of the more amazing examples. In 2007 the Oakland Fire Department unwisely had all the applicants show up on ONE day. They started lining up 3 days ahead of time.

They were astonished when 8,000 applicants showed up for 23 firefighter openings. Chaos reigned as the fire officials swooped down on the crowd and picked the people they wanted to be firefighters, including the fire chief reputedly picking his son. The article below is an amazing read.

There have been numerous other stories of insider help to get preferred (mostly family) candidates selected. This would not be as big a problem if the CA cities and counties paid closer to market wages — comparable to what most other states pay (ignoring the volunteers). But as long as this job (a job many want even without the high… Read More

“[T]he one thing that the federal government must do . . . is keep us safe.”

Senator Marco Rubio spoke those words during the last Republican Presidential debate, and the focus of his campaign could not be more timely. In this era of rising crime and failing schools, of international terrorism and nuclear proliferation, of staggering national debt and low economic growth, we need leaders who know how to keep Americans safe and how to put our country back on the path to prosperity. Marco Rubio is the leader we need in these perilous times, and I am proud to endorse him and pledge my full support for his election as the next President of the United… Read More