Budget and Finance

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Brown proposal would force local school tax increases

Feb. 12, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed re-engineering of the California public school finance system takes a chapter out of President Obama’s urban policy playbook to covertly fund big city school districts with suburban money. We could

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Are higher taxes killing CA tax collection?

Feb. 11, 2013 By Chriss Street In January, California state tax collection beat Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013-14 budget projections by $4.3 billion, or 39.1 percent.  The out-performance was due to two expected one-time events that took place: $1 billion in

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Texas vs. California: What smug Fresno Bee doesn’t mention

Feb. 7, 2013 By Chris Reed The war of words between Gov. Jerry Brown and his Texas counterpart, Rick Perry, over California’s business climate has led to the usual snide comments about the Lone Star State from the media annex

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Schools ripping off kids’ lunch funds

Feb. 7, 2013 By John Seiler Talk about stealing candy from a baby. In Santa Ana, the government school district has been shifting money from kids’ food programs: “In one instance, the Santa Ana Unified School District billed a $301,000

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Disinvest in higher education

Feb. 5, 2013 By Joseph Perkins College is overrated. That’s the ineluctable conclusion to be drawn from a new study published by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The study’s co-authors, Richard Vedder, Jonathan Robe and Christopher Denhart, examined

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Despite Prop. 30, CA revenues likely to miss the mark – again

Feb. 4, 2013 By Josephine Djuhana Will Gov. Jerry Brown get all the revenue increases he wants from Proposition 30, which voters passed last November? Brown recently said in an interview with Jeremy Hobson of Marketplace Morning Report that Prop.

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California a model for other states?

Feb. 3, 2013 By Steven Greenhut SACRAMENTO — California’s modern-day progressive Democrats keep crowing about the huge success they’ve had in taming the state’s budget deficit, thanks to Proposition 30‘s tax increases and other “reforms,” and now are championing the

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Do 57 percent really want higher CA property taxes?

Feb. 1, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi A new public opinion poll reported 57 percent of all California “adults” would favor lowering the majority threshold required to pass “local school parcel taxes.”  But only property owners — not all “adult” residents

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