Tag: California

Categories
Common Sense

The Rest of the Story

One thrill of my lifetime occurred soon after I helped launch U.S. Term Limits in 1992, when radio commentator Paul Harvey phoned me to fact-check a story he was doing.

Harvey, king of radio back then, was a huge fan of term limits. And I was a big fan of him. I loved his quirky vocal mannerisms and the way he told us “the rest of the story.” Today, three years after his death, I’d like to bring you “the rest” of a few recent Common Sense stories.

I. “There is no Olympic medal for political dishonesty,” I concluded a recent commentary about a Missouri State senate race where the principled Ed Emery was wrongly and ridiculously smeared by State Rep. Scott Largent. “Let’s hope Show-Me State voters show Largent the agony of defeat.”

Well, voters did just that. In the August 7 primary, Emery narrowly defeated Largent.

II. Recall my rant on the California parks system apparently hiding $54 million from the department of finance?

With an investigation underway, the Sacramento Bee not only reports “a department that wanted to keep secret a reserve of its own special funds” and — surprise, surprise – the unauthorized use of those slush funds, but also “a springtime rush each year to spend money authorized by the Legislature to avoid having the funds return to the general fund.”

Seems the parks department may also have been dummying up million-dollar contracts to make funding look like it was spent when it wasn’t.

All while asking for donations from the public and closing parks.

III. Objected, I did, to the Obama Administration’s successful push to get a record number of people to sign up for food stamps. Others have objected to David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, who posted on Facebook that we should follow the advice of the National Park Service — “Do not feed the animals” — noting that, “Their stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”

Fowler was denounced for being insensitive, for calling poor people animals.

But aren’t all people animals?

We’re not potted plants.

And now you know the rest of Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Hidden Taxpayer Treasure

If I found $54 million I didn’t know I had, I’d be ecstatic. Yet, when California taxpayers discovered $54 million stuck in secret state parks system bank accounts, they were miffed.

California parks, constrained by the state’s multi-year budget crunch, were facing closure. Meanwhile, these funds went unreported to the Department of Finance. Ruth Coleman, who has led the parks system for the last decade, resigned. Her second-in-command was fired.

A spokesperson for California’s finance department admitted that, historically, the department had relied upon “accurate and correct accounting being reported to us by the relevant departments.” The San Jose Mercury News called it, “The little-known practice of trusting — and not verifying . . .”

Seems there are 500 “special funds” accounting for supposedly $37 billion about which California’s Department of Finance doesn’t have any real clue.

Jonathan Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, says this is hardly “an isolated incident,” and points out that it must be piled “on top of the High Speed Rail fiasco, pay hikes for legislative employees, having to pay $34 million in penalties for overdue bills, raids on special funds to pay for Legislative malfeasance, etc.”

Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown continues to push a tax increase. One of his arguments for the tax hike has been that parks were being closed due to the budget crunch — er, well, rather, due to state officials hiding $54 million dollars.

The Governor’s tax initiative is in trouble. Coupal notes that fiscally prudent Californians have defeated the last eight tax increases on the ballot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Grinding Down Democracy

California’s Democratic legislative majority is anything but lazy. On July 3, when most politicians had long-since left their posts to begin vacationing, California legislators kept their collective nose to the grindstone, busy trying to grind down the right of citizens to petition their government.

Again.

Last year, California’s initiative process withstood multiple attacks. One would have required petitioners to wear signs on their chest stating whether or not they were paid. Another would have outlawed paying petitioners per signature.

Nary a Republican voted for these bills; thankfully, Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed both. He suggested government shouldn’t force citizens to wear signs on their chests and noted, “It doesn’t seem very practical to me to create a system that makes productivity goals a crime.”

Undeterred, the Assembly Elections Committee passed ACA 10, which would require constitutional amendment initiatives to qualify by running petition drives in 27 state senate districts. This, on top of the current requirement to gather more than a million voter signatures statewide,

Well-heeled interests would be able to afford the higher costs. Grassroots groups? Not so much.

Further, ACA 10 mandates that constitutional amendments proposed by citizens through the initiative must garner a supermajority of 55 percent to pass. This would allow big spending-unions or wealthy individuals or big corporations to defeat reform measures even when a majority of voters favor the measure.

Legislators claim the constitution should not be changed by a slim majority. Yet, ACA 10 doesn’t increase the simple majority currently required when it comes to amendments that legislators propose.

Legislators are working overtime to get those pesky citizen reformers out of their way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly responsibility

The Stockton Bust

Stockton, California, had seen a flurry of new home projects right up till the mortgage market crash. But, boy, did that come to a screeching halt. The crash led to foreclosures, which led to lower revenues from property taxes for the city. And though the city tried some spending cuts, they haven’t been enough. The Stockton City Council just voted, six to one, to seek federal bankruptcy protection.

Reasons for the bankruptcy, however, are not confined to reduced revenues. Add “soaring pension costs” and “contractual obligations” to the list of disaster factors.Stockton Bankruptcy - an illustrative image, not a photojournalistic artifact

And it’s pensions and medical insurance that make up the elephant’s share of “contractually obligated” must-pays. We’ll see if official bankruptcy will allow the city to get out from under that mess. The Chapter 9 plan includes dropping medical benefits for currently fully-covered retirees.

Who’s to blame? Politicians who negotiate really cushy deals for their (our) employees. The contracts obligate future taxpayers to pay out huge pensions for future retirees, rather than being funded (through insurance and investment) at the time of salary disbursement. The problem is that politicians love to make promises others must keep. Specifically, in this case, they contract defined benefit pensions not defined contribution pensions.

It makes no sense to do this, of course. It encourages irresponsibility, and is (to use a buzzword that should be used often against its usual purveyors) unsustainable. As proven by the Stockton bankruptcy.

Stockton is, so far, the largest American city to go belly up. We can expect further such busts, since the cause of Stockton’s problems — under-funded pensions coupled with full-coverage, gold-plated, lifelong health insurance for government retirees — remain endemic throughout the country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Trick and Treats

After more than a year of big labor throwing industrial-size kitchen sinks at Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s Republican governor became the first of the three governors in U.S. history to face recall and retain the office.

Walker more than survived; he prevailed, beating his Democratic rival by seven percentage points, 53 to 46. In a light blue state, it was a thorough thwacking of the public employee unions, the biggest, bluest special interest.

According to exit polls, Walker even won better than a third of union households.

The man had kept his word not to raise taxes. Further, ending collective bargaining for most government employee unions, along with other reforms, saved lots of money for state and local governments and school districts. This, it turns out, prevented public sector layoffs and helped secure future health and pension benefits.

Walker’s success will be repeated elsewhere.

Hey, already happened! On Tuesday, in San Diego and San Jose, California, voters overwhelmingly passed measures to get a handle on out-of-control public employee pension costs. These measures were, of course, fiercely opposed by government unions.

As cities are cutting programs to pay pension benefits for retirees, a post on the Calpensions blog explains, “Public pension amounts in California are based on what unions are able to obtain through collective bargaining, not what is needed for a reasonable retirement.”

Among Tuesday’s many treats, there was one really rotten trick. California’s Prop 28 passed, weakening the state’s legislative term limits. Most voters, misled by the official ballot summary, thought the measure would result in tougher term limits.

Can’t wait until the next election, which falls nearer Halloween. Hope for more treats than tricks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits video

Video: California Term Limit Scam

CAUTION: A carefully concocted measure designed to fool the voters. Pass this on. It is important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruTn1kkvv6Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Categories
links term limits

Townhall: California’s Cross-dressing Ballot Initiative

California politicians are at it again, as you can see on Townhall this weekend. And come back for the links:

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Professional Politicians & Crony Capitalists

Yesterday, I explained how the official title for California’s Proposition 28 tricks voters who favor tougher term limits into supporting a measure that will dramatically weaken those limits.

The title’s slipperiness is anything but accidental. It was designed to fool, hiding the fact that the measure doubles the time legislators can park themselves in the state assembly and ups senate tenure by 50 percent. Instead, voters read that Prop 28 “reduces” (ever so slightly) the time a politician can serve in both chambers, from 14 years to 12 years – something affecting less than one in ten office-holders.

“The proponents of the measure are longtime opponents of term limits who have long wanted to roll back California’s voter-approved legislative term limits,” says Jon Fleishman of the Flash Report, who serves as volunteer co-chairman of “No on 28.”

Still, the sham ballot title is only one part of the Prop 28 scam.

The biggest financial backer behind Prop 28 has been billionaire developer Edward Roski. While at the very same time legislators were awarding Roski’s company the special environmental exemptions he needed to build a sports stadium, Roski just happened to plunk down over a million bucks to the politician-prized petition drive, helping the measure get on the June 5th ballot.

“That’s crony capitalism and that stinks,” argues Fleishman.

“In a state with a 12-percent-plus unemployment rate,” Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, points out about legislators, “the jobs they’re fighting the hardest to keep are their own.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

Down and Out and California

Barring drastic action, the Golden State will run out of cash in March.

There is no provision in the Constitution for dealing with a bankrupt state. But then, there’s nothing explicit dealing with federal bankruptcy, either. The founding fathers didn’t expect their republic to permanently accumulate debt. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson wished to foreswear all sovereign debt. He considered the practice parasitic.California's Direction

Our leaders are supposed to run our governments so to avoid debt crises.

But, because politicians do just the opposite, they run into cash flow crunches. Last year, California’s statesmen borrowed $5.4 billion to cover the lean time before Spring’s tax revenues flowed in. They had figured they would be good through June, but miscalculated. Now they’re scrambling for an extra $3.3 billion.

Time to fudge the books! Pay late. Not answer the phone or respond to dunning notices.

Of course, the real problem is over-spending. California’s politicians spend too much.

Alas, it doesn’t look like they are about to reform.

Gov. Jerry Brown still pushes the huge “investment” of high-speed rail, for the grandest example. The project’s supporters have over-estimated ridership, underestimated costs (the most realistic official accounting now puts the system at $98 billion), and have been forced to restrict the extent of the line, excluding both San Diego and the state capital. Brown’s response? Making up for cost overruns by hijacking funds from the state’s “cap-and-trade” (the nation’s only carbon-footprint-based) tax.

Ah, politicians: Spend, spend, spend, even as the institutions they are responsible for lurch into insolvency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

On the Other Hand

To start off this New Year, I admit that I missed some very thrifty actions taken by elected officials in 2011.

Though I often commented on California legislators, regrettably, I failed to mention their frugality. Last May, they unequivocally said, “No” to Senate Bill 18, which would have cost $200,000 for enforcement of the legislation’s gift ban.

These eminent elected officials would doubtless like to have SB-18’s restriction on lobbyists and special interests plying them with free tickets to sporting events, rock concerts, and other expensive entertainment venues, but were unwilling to place the high cost of policing their behavior onto the backs of taxpayers.

Nor are politicians always careless with tax dollars. In Washington, D.C., Council Chairman Kwame Brown gets the city’s money’s worth.

He had the city order him a Lincoln Navigator, loaded with a DVD entertainment system, power moon-roof and polished aluminum wheels. But, when the vehicle and its $1,900 a month lease arrived, the interior was gray — not black as requested. Brown wouldn’t stand for being shortchanged. So, a new SUV was ordered, with both exterior and interior black. It was driven from Michigan to Washington for an extra $1,500.

The city was stuck paying two luxury vehicle leases, but it’s the principle that counts. Chairman Brown informed the Washington Post that dark interiors hold their value better.

This year, let’s acknowledge the good elected officials do and not just harp on the bad. After all, nobody’s perfect.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.