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By Kenneth Thorpe A simple reform to Medicare's prescription drug program could put billions of dollars back into seniors' pockets over the next decade. That'd help them better manage their chronic conditions and significantly lower overall health spending. Concerningly, that reform is gathering dust. That's a huge problem for seniors -- and one we need to fix sooner rather than later. More than two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have multiple chronic illnesses. They face health care costs...
The representative association for the employers most likely to pay a starting wage today called on voters to reject Proposition 32, the ballot initiative that would raise California's minimum-wage rate to $18 an hour. "Progressives have once again proven their utter failure to grasp Main Street economics in the Golden State, advancing deeply flawed policy that will shutter even more small businesses and employment opportunities for struggling Californians," said John Kabateck, California state...
Supervisor Holly Mitchell provided the following statement in regard to the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson: "This morning the Supreme Court ruling on Grants Pass unfortunately opens the door to penalize people who are unhoused. The ruling came on the same day that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) reported a slight decrease in the number of people across the Los Angeles County. LA County is leading with what works – connection t...
Thank you for the calls you've made to tell the legislature that ACA 13 and ACA 1 are attacks on Proposition 13 that must be stopped. Your help is needed again as these two dangerous measures come up for a vote on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. We're asking all HJTA members and supporters to please call the members of the committee and urge them to vote NO on ACA 13 and NO on ACA 1. Please call as soon as possible! Here's all the information: NO on ACA 13 ACA 13...
In California politics, there are three major movements to the annual budget Kabuki Dance. In January of each year, the governor announces a proposed budget for the next fiscal year beginning July 1st. The dance move just executed last week was the “May Revise,” a revision of the previous proposed budget, leading up to the passage of the final budget by June 15th. As this column has previously revealed, all phases of the budget dance are fake insofar as they are subject to substantial ame...
Today the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will be holding a public forum to hear from ratepayers on the gas rate increase request from SoCalGas. If approved, this rate increase would take effect in January 2024 and impact monthly ratepayer bills by an estimated 13.2% per month. Activists and community members are urging the CPUC to deny SoCalGas’s request for a rate hike and to instead transition California away from fossil fuels. Regarding the public forum, Food & Water Watch’s California Director Chirag Bhakta issued the followi...
By Jon Coupal President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association There’s an old joke about the origins of the word “expert.” The story is that it is a combination of the word “ex” – meaning a has-been – and “spurt” – defined as a drip under pressure. Therefore, “expert” means a has-been drip under pressure. Like it or not, we all rely on experts in our daily lives. But Americans are losing trust in experts, according to the Pew Research Center. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, ini...
By Jon Coupal President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association There’s an old joke about the origins of the word “expert.” The story is that it is a combination of the word “ex” – meaning a has-been – and “spurt” – defined as a drip under pressure. Therefore, “expert” means a has-been drip under pressure. Like it or not, we all rely on experts in our daily lives. But Americans are losing trust in experts, according to the Pew Research Center. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, ini...
By Jon Coupal and Scott Kaufman As the Legislature gavels in for another session of taxpayer abuse, we can look back at the last session and cheerfully report, it could have been worse. The Legislature sent Gov. Gavin Newsom 1,166 bills last year. He signed 997 and vetoed 169. Fortunately, the midterm elections served to concentrate the minds of lawmakers, taming many of the Legislature’s more radical proposals. However, several bills that were signed by the governor are still a cause for c...
By Jon COUPAL President Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association I sincerely hope that readers aren’t turned off by the title of this column. While most taxpayers aren’t directly responsible for paying unemployment insurance taxes, the truth is we all pay and, in California, we pay a great deal more than we should. Last week I received an email from a dentist who operates a small dental office and is required to pay the unemployment insurance tax and, sadly, is paying much more than he should bec...
by Larry Sand President of the California Teachers Empowerment Network It’s no secret that the teachers’ unions have control over most aspects of public education in the U.S. The school boards, which negotiate with unions over salary, work rules, etc. are particularly important for the unions to dominate. Michael Hartney, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recently quantified the unions’ stronghold on the all-important boards. Hartney asserts that union-endorsed candidates win about 70% of all competitive school board r...
By Jon Coupal President Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Much of what government does is wasteful, ineffective, and redundant. For example, Senate Bill 679 was recently signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of the "housing and homelessness package" of bills intended to address the state's housing shortage. While no one disputes the severity of California's housing crisis, this legislation is seriously flawed. SB 679 establishes the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency and authorizes the agency to, among other...
As elected leaders we are held to a higher standard, and while we should never accept racist remarks from anyone, it is particularly heinous when those remarks are made by the people, we have entrusted to lead us. As widely reported by the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Councilmembers Martinez, de Leon and Cedillo engaged in an abhorrent conversation that demeaned and disrespected their fellow Councilmember Mike Bonin, his family, other LA City Councilmembers and the African-American community as a...
By LARA KORTE Politico Gas prices are dropping for nearly everyone in the country but remain stubbornly high in California, where state officials are blaming oil companies and reminding voters that relief is on the way in the form of tax rebates scheduled to arrive in weeks. Experts say factors to blame for the high cost of gas in California — now more than $5 a gallon — include problems at refineries that supply the state as well as higher taxes, more regulations and the same global issues driving the overall U.S. market. Still, the cost of...
By Jon Coupal California has a lot of problems and not all of them are directly taxpayer related. But, as noted in last week’s column, they all interconnect in one important way: Control. Our state’s government and its boosters think they know better than you. They know better how to spend your money. They know better how to use your land. They know what’s best for you. And, if you disagree, the nanny state will just make it illegal. Look no further than Proposition 31 on this November’s ballot. It’s a referendum on Senate Bill 793, the state...
By Jon Coupal California has a lot of problems and not all of them are directly taxpayer related. But, as noted in last week’s column, they all interconnect in one important way: Control. Our state’s government and its boosters think they know better than you. They know better how to spend your money. They know better how to use your land. They know what’s best for you. And, if you disagree, the nanny state will just make it illegal. Look no further than Proposition 31 on this November’s ballot. It’s a referendum on Senate Bill 793, the state...
By Jon Coupal President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA). He is a recognized expert in California fiscal affairs and has argued numerous tax cases before the courts. Here we go again. Another “study” purporting to reveal how unfair Proposition 13 is. But this time, the tax-hikers are using the progressives’ favorite catch-all justification: inequity and racism. Prop. 13 has been under constant assault for 42 years by people who want to raise property taxes without limitation. Like all their other arguments, this one won’t...
By Jon Coupal president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Victor Davis Hanson is a resident scholar at the Hoover Institute and lifelong Californian from the Central Valley. He recently spoke at a conference of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association members. For the naïve who want an optimistic presentation about how great California is, VDH is not your guy. He gives an accurate, if depressing, view of the current state of the state. In both his writings and speeches, he assesses just how far California has deteriorated; from...
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a brief in defense of Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), which allows local governments to rezone certain neighborhoods for denser housing, irrespective of local restrictions. SB 10 was part of a package of bills passed by the Legislature last year to alleviate California’s housing crisis. Following its passage, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court arguing that the law is unconstitutional. In today's brief, Attorney General Bonta argues that the nonprofit's petition s...
By Jon Coupal In George Orwell’s 1984, there is a particularly gripping scene where the protagonist, Winston, is being interrogated by O’Brien, a member of the party leadership. O’Brien shows Winston a photo that proves that three party members who were executed for treason were, in fact, innocent. O’Brien then drops the photo into what is called a “memory hole” and the photo is incinerated. “Ashes,” O’Brien says. “Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.” The book is meant as a cautionary tale, but one that wa...
By Jon Coupal As a participant in capital politics for more than 30 years, I’ve observed many abuses of power. Corruption, pettiness, gross narcissism, and dirty tricks have all increased in recent years both in terms of frequency and shock value. The latest incident, and honestly one of the more disturbing I have seen, occurred in the Assembly Transportation Committee last week. Californians are reeling at the pump as our gas prices are the highest in the nation. The working poor and middle class are begging the Legislature for relief, w...
The California State Board of Equalization (BOE) released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2020-21 Annual Report, which reported that the total net statewide county-assessed property value was $7.1 trillion, resulting in $79.9 billion of local property tax levies. Those property tax levies contributed $43 billion to schools and $36.9 billion to local government. This is an additional $4.5 billion, or a 6% increase, in property tax levies from FY 2019-20 of $75.4 billion. “The increase in property tax l...
By Mark Thies Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are scrambling to find a way to amnesty illegal immigrants in their nearly $2 trillion budget bill. The Senate parliamentarian, who decides what provisions can and can't be included in the bill that's being advanced under the filibuster-proof "reconciliation" process, shot down their first two proposals. So now, lawmakers are proceeding with "Plan C" -- which would grant illegal immigrants "parole," a status that gives illegal immigrants work...
By David E. Mastagni and Taylor Davies-Mahaffey In 2019, a California appeals court held that Proposition 57 allowed those convicted of multiple violent and nonviolent crimes to qualify for early release after serving only the sentence for one of the nonviolent crimes. The California Supreme Court found that the language in Proposition 57 was ambiguous and, upon reviewing ballot materials, concluded that the initiative did not require the early release of violent felons. Voters were told that Pr...
By Alyssa Erdley Observer Staff 2/2/22 - Squalid conditions downtown and on the Third Street Promenade appear to be causing much of the vacancies in retail spaces visible there today. The downtown and Promenade area were already ailing before the lockdowns of 2020, with an increasing presence of vagrants who appeared to need drug rehabilitation or mental health services. But once the Covid-19 lockdowns closed all retail businesses that weren’t labeled essential and after the riot on May 31, 2020, the situation worsened considerably. The v...
