Pensions are assuming an increasingly important role in state/local public policy. From Detroit’s bankruptcy to the recent legislation signed by Illinois’ governor to alleviate a $100 billion liability, Californians are uniquely familiar with this crisis. More recently than the well-known bankruptcies from Vallejo to San Bernardino, the Sacramento Bee noted just two weeks ago that while the City of Sacramento reduced its payroll by 1,000 employees over the last five years, its annual pension obligations have increased by almost 10 percent – now at $55.4 million for the budget year.

The scenario in the capital city, illustrates a little appreciated paradigm in the public sector: while governments are getting smaller (in number of employees), they are getting more expensive. This dynamic is being demonstrated in the City of Chicago, where, as the Wall… Read More

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I came to my topic, Energizing California Republicans, while advising a Republican candidate for State Assembly, a terrific Republican a number of you may know, Catherine Baker from the East Bay area. She was the Northern California chair for last year’s Romney campaign. I told Catherine that she will have to teach her district’s voters who are plurality Democrats why they should vote for a Republican.

You see, Catherine Baker and every Republican candidate will have to win the argument against that candidate’s Democratic counterpart. As Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher explained to her Tories, they must first win the argument than they will win the votes. In my experienced opinion, Thatcher was dead on target.

Now I will try to win the argument with the skeptics and the neutrals among you so you can help our Silicon Valley Republican candidates win the votes.

Our founding party father, President Abraham Lincoln, gave us, Republicans, the key to our political victories. Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” That is the central theme of my speech… Read More

This is Part 2 of a series on the EDD. Part 1, an interview with Spokesman Dan Stephens, ishere.

Just after the Labor Day weekend, the California Employment Development Department released a $100 million computer upgrade. Itcrashed.

Without warning,150,000 joblessCalifornians were cut from unemployment benefits. The EDD blamed a computer glitch and said it would take weeks to fix.

November hearings in the Legislature produced promises to fix the system. In response,Henry Perea, D-Fresno, the chairman of the Insurance Committee, senta letterto EDD Director Hilliard demanding fixes by Dec. 31. Perea identified five… Read More

Will Rogers delivered what is my favorite wry comment about government: “Thank God we don’t get all the government we pay for.” Certainly such is the case deep within our 13 story San Diego city hall.

The SAN DIEGO U-T reports that the city needs an average of 280 days to fill a vacancy. That’s just over nine months to hire someone to do a job.

With the exception of police and a few niche high skill slots, this makes no sense at all. No private sector company would take two months to fill most slots. Often not two WEEKS. Yet San Diego needs over nine months. Awesome!

It’s not as though they can’t find qualified applicants. Even with San Diego’s reformed 401k-type pensions — such government positions would draw crowds of eager applicants if anyone at the city bothered to post a CraigsList want ad for $25. So it’s not that the city can’t find good applicants — it’s just the “city way” of doing business.

Here’s the irony. We’re told by government labor union bosses that we need to pay top dollar to entice “the best and the… Read More

by Richard Rider, Chairman, San Diego Tax Fighters

Updated1 September, 2013

Phone: 858-530-3027 Blog:www.RiderRants.BlogSpot.com

When it comes to gathering sufficient property taxes, Prop 13 is no problem at all–except for profligate spenders. Look at the history of my San Diego County–a history which pretty much reflects the history of… Read More

Back in 2011 a California state legislator told me, off the record, that for years, a secret 7:00 a.m. meeting is held once per week in Sacramento. At this meeting are a handful of top officials representing the major public sector unions active in California. They discuss current legislation, political trends, opposition groups, emerging issues, and coordinate their strategy. Collectively, just within California, these public sector union leaders collect and spend over $1.0 billion in membership dues and fees every year.

Compare this to the supposedly shocking expose published this week by the esteemed U.K. Guardian, entitled “State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax.”

If you haven’t heard of the U.K. Guardian before 2013, you might remember it as the media venue that recently published fugitive Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. With a combined worldwide monthly print and online audience of over 30 million, the Guardian is no lightweight. But they seem to have a bad case of scope insensitivity when it comes to… Read More

The fallout from Obamacare continues to take a toll on the President’s party and its candidates according to the latest round of polling released before the Christmas holidays. The collapse of Democrat support represents a total reversal from the days during and after the October federal government shutdown when Republican support slid dramatically and sentiment about Democrats surged across the board.

A top level number of concern to national strategists is the “generic ballot test,” which gauges general voter sentiment by asking whether someone would support a Republican or Democrat candidate for Congress. It’s a good barometer because it factors out individual candidate or district characteristics, and thus is a gauge of general sentiment toward each party.

Today, Republicans lead in the generic ballot test, 41% to 38% in the latest Quinnipiac survey. It is the first time Republicans have led in this critical indicator all year.

Digging deeper, we see Democrats and Republicans are roughly equally loyal to their… Read More

In March of 2001 I started producing an e-mail newsletter, The FlashReport, that went out several times a week, which combined daily clippings with my own analysis and commentary on California politics. In October of 2005 I flipped the newsletter into this website, where, along with my Editors John Hrabe and Anton Hartmann (and Nick Romero back in the day), have still been producing daily links to online political stories as well as a lot of great original content not only from yours truly but from hundreds of contributors. The last month I did something I had not done for over a dozen years — I took a month off. I had a family vacation planned before Thanksgiving, and decided that I would truly “unplug” and spend quality time with my wife and kids. It was a much needed break — and it was nice to simply consume political stories rather than create them!

… Read More