A few months ago UnionWatch published an editorial entitled “Social Security is Healthy Compared to Public Sector Pensions.” The highlights offer compelling evidence of two very distinct categories of “middle class workers” in America:

“According to theU.S. Census Bureau, in 2030, when Social Security will be supposedly approaching insolvency, there will be 99.4 million citizens over 58 years old, and 59.5 million citizens over 68 years old. This means that by 2030 (assuming no public employeesalsoparticipate in Social Security – which many of them do) there will be 19.9 million government retirees collecting pensions that average $60,000 per year, and there will be 47.6 million private sector retirees collecting Social Security benefits that average $20,000 per year. Using these assumptions, the total pension payouts to government retirees, who were only 20% of the workforce, will be $1.2… Read More

UPDATE: The American Tort Reform Association ranks California the “worst judicial hellhole” in U.S. for 2nd year in a row – extremely anti-business. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks CA higher – “only” the 4th worst state (unfortunately, sliding from 7th worst in 2008). http://www.judicialhellholes.org/2013/12/17/california-ranks-1-in-20132014-judicial-hellholes-report/ and http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/states/california… Read More

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A couple months back I wrote a satire for FlashReport regarding West Hollywood passing a law banning fire places. About half the readers found it plausible and were fooled into believing it was true. Though that scenario was contrived but seemed real to many, the situation I write about today is utterly real yet one beyond the imagination of most people before now.

Here are the basic facts:

1. The West Traffic Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) created a traffic ticket quota for officers. The quota required officers to write 18 traffic tickets each shift with 80% of those tickets being for what are considered major violations. 2. Police Officers who participated in this scheme sued the city because of the harm done to them by being forced to participate in this quota system. 3. The prior city attorney (Carmen Trutanich) spent at least $2.4 million on outside legal counsel fighting this case. 4. The City Council of Los Angeles in executive session with the new City Attorney (Mike Feuer) unanimously agreed to a settlement of $5.9 million being paid to 11 police officers for the unstated harm that these officers… Read More

A common justification for California’s sky-high state and local public employee pay and pensions is our state’s high cost of living. This is a valid point — sorta. California DOES have a higher cost of living and higher pay, but it doesn’t come close to justifying most of the dramatic disparity between public and private total compensation.

The real comparison is the difference in average household income among states (CA is the 10th highest state — 13.4% higher than the national average) or per capita income ranking (CA is the 12th highest — 6.7% higher than the national average).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income

Butcomparing California firefighter basic wages with the average firefighter’s pay in the other 49 states, we pay 60.2% higher than the other… Read More

What’s killing local California governments is the huge cost of overpaying and over-pensioning public employees. ESPECIALLY our public safety employees (mostly police and firefighters). Some cities have declared bankruptcy, with many others bankrupt but so far refusing to acknowledging their plight.

I here offer two database tools. The first let’s you find out how your town stacks up against other cities in the state. The second tells how your state stacks up against the other states.

1. If you’d like to find out how your CA city’s police and firefighter compensation stacks up against other bergs in the state, check out this excellent interactive link from the pro-public employee SACRAMENTO BEE. You can rank the cities by cost. Or you can take your COUNTY and easily compare the cities within the county. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/03/3446569/see-average-police-firefighter.html?

For instance, here’s the sorted link for firefighters’ compensation in the cities within San Diego County:… Read More

What if you were told there is a corrupt dictatorship on the other side of the world where government officials are using US foreign aid to build palatial mansions for themselves, diverting money intended to feed poor children and spending billions with no oversight or accountability?

Unfortunately, these examples are not from a remote foreign land, but from right here in California. And you, California taxpayers, are footing the bill.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation has just released “Follow the Money 2013,” a report chronicling some of the highest profile government waste, fraud and abuse uncovered this year. Added together, the examples in this document amount to tens of billions of dollars.

There seems to be no limit on the irresponsible behavior of some politicians and bureaucrats when it comes to spending OPM (Other People’s Money). “Follow the Money 2013” shows they are paying millions to drug rehab clinics with histories of questionable billing practices, giving elected officials bonuses just for being reelected, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on outside consultants, and much, much more.

While the report profiles… Read More

Any fiscal conservative who joins a bipartisan coalition to advance a common cause needs to be wary about becoming one of the Left’s “useful idiots.” A classic example is now unfolding in Sacramento, where sports fans and corporate interests are clamoring for exceptional efforts – including a $258 million public subsidy – to retain the region’s one major league professional sports team, the Kings of the National Basketball Association.

Emotionalism and financial self-interest are overwhelming critical thinking about mundane issues such as opportunity costs, municipal debt finance, property rights, regional transportation planning, and the role of government in redistributing capital. And the selected location for the new arena was a strategic error that may send the Kings packing to more lucrative pastures.

Either by design or by default, the new arena is planned for downtown Sacramento, rather than a suburban site or even next to the current arena. As a result, the arena and anticipated development around the arena are being subjected to costly political meddling, led by downtown’s State Senator Darrell Steinberg and his political… Read More

Driving from one Kenyan town to the next was not how I expected to spend my December 27, 2007. That is, until I got a call from the International Republican Institute asking me to be a part of their international election observation team to monitor the election taking place on that day.

It was my first time in sub-Saharan Africa, and I took the opportunity to continue my activities for IRI because like very election observation mission, it represented the chance to help others enjoy the benefits of democracy that we often take for granted here in America.

The international consensus reached in the aftermath of the vote was that the outcome was at least partially manipulated. Rioting broke out in Nairobi and other parts of the country shortly after I had departed.

While I went to Kenya to observe an election, it was something I incidentally observed along the way that seized my attention and prompted me to think through another aspect of society: the role of technology, and the question of whether it is beneficial to humanity.

… Read More