New study shows finances likely to be worse than planned and poll shows voters not happy with high speed rail spending

As more bad news mounts for California’s high speed rail plan, Senator Doug LaMalfa (R- Richvale) continues to push for a re-vote on the project. A new report from California Common Sense found that with expected cost overruns, the revised and smaller project would likely cost over $99 billion. The report also found that California would need to make annual payments of $6.5 billion for the project if the state shoulders the burden alone. That is more than the state currently spends on the California State University, the University of California and state-sponsored childcare combined. The federal transportation bill passed last week prohibits future federal funding for the project, virtually assuring that California alone will carry the costs.

“Costs for high speed rail will continue to rise even as public support plummets,” said Senator LaMalfa. “California doesn’t have the money for this project. We are cutting the school year, releasing violent felons early, and the… Read More

Over the next couple of days, while vast numbers of horrible pieces of legislation wind themselves further through the legislative maze, three higher profile issues will get most of the media attention. A vote to authorize billions in funding for High Speed Rail is expected, action to move the $11 billion water bond currently slated to go before voters this November, and the lack of any pension reform proposals from the legislature (despite assurances otherwise) before everyone blasts out of town on Friday for a month-long Summer vacation.

HIGH SPEED RAIL BOONDOGGLE When voters gave the green… Read More

— The battle between Governor Jerry Brown and Molly Munger, the daughter of Birkshire Hathaway titan Charles Munger, allows me to officially proclaim that bipartisanship is not dead. Governor Brown opposes Molly Munger’s massive tax increase. And Molly Munger opposes Governor Brown’s massive tax increase. And I actually oppose both the Governor’s massive tax increase and Munger’s massive tax increase. We’re all on the same team!

— Speaker John Perez and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer both have something in common — both of them want to pass a massive billion dollar plus tax increase that would only further weaken economic recovery in California. You seriously cannot make this stuff up.

— So it is unclear to my why any Republicans in the California legislature would be voting to give any kind of… Read More

With the pivotal San Diego mayoral runoff coming up in November, we San Diegans know we will have to endure the most hate-filled misinformation campaign against a Republican reform candidate (Carl DeMaio) ever seen in a major local race. We got a taste of this in the June primary — big-time. Even though the airwaves carried nonstop anti-DeMaio smear commercials, it was only the opening salvo.

Money will pour in to this race from NATIONAL unions as well as all the usual local suspects. It’s quite possible we’ll see union spending that will exceed SIX MILLION DOLLARS. No way the DeMaio supporters (I’m one) will be able to match that level of spending — but I think we can win. Here’s why.

We’ll detail the sordid background of the labor unions’ standard bearer — Congressman Bob Filner. Even many of my knowledgeable San Diego allies are not fully familiar with the historical degree of affiliation Filner has with socialist and communist organizations and luminaries such as Fidel Castro. His background speaks for itself. And no amount of union spending will be able to counter Filner’s… Read More

There are many areas of California law that are complex and difficult for even public policy experts to understand, let alone lay people like me. For example, try to discuss the finer details of Prop. 98 funding with even the most seasoned Capitol staff person, and you might quickly find their eyes, along with your own, glazing over. Another very challenging area of state policy to digest is how multi-state businesses pay taxes in California. Because some of these topic areas are so convoluted and confusing, we often just look to people who sound like experts to summarize them and help guide us through the public policy maze in search of ferreting out good ideas from poor ones.

For several years I have been writing at a cursory level about how multi-state businesses pay their taxes in California — we’ve all seen the broad descriptions “multi-factor apportionment,” “elective single sales factor,” and so forth. In this column I am going to do my best to really explain this issue of how California taxes multi-state businesses, for two reasons. The first, and I will elaborate further, is that up to this point I have been pretty… Read More

Today the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care mandate. While I respect the Court’s ruling, it doesn’t change what we know to be true: Obamacare is a bad law that is wrong for America. Today the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, not that it is a good or wise law. Obamacare is still a dangerous collaboration of bad legislating, smoke and mirrors calculations and dangerous policy. Under President Obama’s signature legislation, health care costs continue to skyrocket, and up to 20 million Americans could lose their employer-based coverage. Born from intensely partisan, back door deals and closed room meetings, Obamacare is a boondoggle of historic proportions. While no one can argue that our healthcare system doesn’t need reform, the partisan and closed door way in which this bad law was forced on the American people made it wrong from the beginning. Even though ruled constitutional, Obamacare is a law that will add trillions to our debt, increase… Read More

A “must watch” video, OBAMATAX, by FR friend Ben Howe…

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This is an expanded version of a letter to the editor concerning education that I submitted to the U-T newspaper. It didn’t run, but no need for my research to go to waste.

Dear U-T Editor:

Teacher Sharon Collins’ letter selflessly calls for higher taxes for education, citing socialist Sweden as her shining light. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jun/21/letters-sd-schools-teachers-labor-pact/?print&page=all She didn’t do her homework.

She thinks Sweden values education more than America because they have a 25 percent sales tax (actually a VAT tax). But that high tax tells us nothing.

For a meaningful comparison, look at education spending per student. Of the 32 OECD counties (the economically advanced countries of the world) providing data, in 2008 Sweden ranks 6th in primary school per student spending, the U.S. 5th. Sweden ranks 9th in secondary school spending, the U.S. ranks 4th.

Sweden spent $9,080 per primary school student. The U.S. spent $9,940. Sweden spent $9,940 per secondary school… Read More