By Jon Coupal at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

April 10, 2016

An earlier edition of this column focused on government waste due to gross mismanagement and fraud on the part of California state and local governments.  The argument then, as it is now, is that elected representatives should be spending much more of their time and energy on oversight of existing programs, rather than posture for a photo op or press release announcing a “new” program that, in all likelihood, is redundant with a dozen or more existing programs covering the same subject matter.

The problem, of course, is that elected officials and bureaucrats have no incentive to be cautious regarding how they spend our tax dollars. Here, the observations of Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman are instructive. He noted that there are four ways people can spend money:

Read more at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

By Andrew Do in The Orange County Register

April 10, 2016

Sunshine, sand and security. There’s nowhere else on Earth that can rival Orange County’s unique quality of life.

Yet, our public safety – the ability to leave our doors unlocked and walk down the street at night – is in jeopardy. The Register’s recent analysis of law enforcement data revealed that crime rates are rising in our community.

Read more at The Orange County Register

By Thomas D. Elias in Los Angeles Daily News

April 7, 2016

There will likely be fights this fall over taxes, marijuana, education, water and possibly campaign donations. But if Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to reduce prison populations even further by easing parole standards reaches the ballot, the biggest battle might be over crime.

A major dispute already rages around the state over whether the combination of Brown’s prison realignment program and the 2014 Proposition 47 easing of crime standards has produced a large increase in criminal conduct.

Read more at Los Angeles Daily News

By Rachel Bovard at The Daily Signal

April 5, 2016

On March 30, the Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. This case is one of a collection of land use cases that trickle into the Court from time to time, all representing the same problem: The Clean Water Act drastically limits the rights of landowners to build or develop on land that constitutes “waters of the United States” (WOTUS). Unfortunately, the term “waters of the United States” is left undefined.

This leads to what, in many cases, appears to be “interpretation via whim” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—the agency tasked with issuing regulations to implement the Clean Water Act. The Corps of Engineers regulations are notoriously ambiguous, complex, and expensive to comply with. According to one study, obtaining a permit costs an average of $270,000 and takes more than two years.

Read more at The Daily Signal

By Dan Walters in The Sacramento Bee

April 5, 2016

The Capitol’s denizens have proved that when they are motivated, they can act quickly on legislation.

It took just a week for an agreement on raising the state’s minimum wage to be drafted, enacted by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By Stephen Baxter in San Jose Mercury News

April 4, 2016

SANTA CRUZ — Years ago, 67-year-old David Giannini of Santa Cruz was coaching a high school mountain bike team when one of his riders told him his bike had been stolen and he couldn’t ride that day.

So Giannini posed a simple question to the other 22 teens on his team: Had any of them ever had a bicycle ripped off?

Read more at San Jose Mercury News

By Anne Marie Schubert in The Sacramento Bee

March 30, 2016

Gov. Jerry Brown wants Californians to vote in November for the early release of prison inmates. Under the guise of promoting public safety and rehabilitation, Brown promises that early parole will be for only nonviolent inmates who “turn their lives around” in prison.

The governor’s practice of releasing violent and dangerous inmates early with little to no rehabilitation flies in the face of his promise of public safety. Countless early releases in Sacramento County alone are shocking, even to a career prosecutor.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By Jon Coupal at California Political Review

March 29, 2016

n its 38-year history, Proposition 13 has been under constant assault. The attacks have come from the Legislature, the media and especially the courts. After initially being upheld against a myriad of constitutional challenges, the California Supreme Court then began punching loopholes in the landmark tax reform measure.

Prop. 13 was intended, first and foremost, to limit out-of-control property tax increases that were forcing tens of thousands of Californians out of their homes. It did this by imposing a 1 percent cap on the base property tax known as the ad valorem tax and limiting subsequent increases to 2 percent annually. But Howard Jarvis and the voters were well aware how creative local governments could be in dreaming up new kinds of taxes to make up for the tax relief conferred on property owners by Prop. 13. For that reason, it also imposed a two-thirds vote requirement on other local taxes. Today, because of court rulings and other constitutional taxpayer protections — including Proposition 218, sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — local taxes going into a general fund require a simple majority vote of the electorate while taxes intended for special purposes require a two-thirds vote.

Read more at California Political Review

By Paul Rogers in San Jose Mercury News

March 29, 2016

With the wettest winter in five years having taken the hard edges off the historic drought and a key Sierra snowpack reading Wednesday expected to show big gains, Californians can look forward to substantial relief from mandatory statewide water restrictions.

“We are likely to ease the rules or lift the rules,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. “We are in better shape.”

Read more at San Jose Mercury News

By Paul Rogers in Contra Costa Times

March 27, 2016

In a development that casts significant doubt on whether Silicon Valley’s largest water district will help pay for Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion Delta tunnels plan, a majority of Santa Clara Valley Water District board members now say they want to put the issue to a public vote.

The district, which provides 1.9 million residents of Santa Clara County drinking water and flood protection, has been a key player in Brown’s controversial plan. Its share of the tunnels project could cost up to $1.2 billion.

Read more at Contra Costa Times