Taxes

Refund illegal taxes?

Suppose you buy a new car with a GPS navigation system built in. But you drive it home and realize the system wasn’t installed. Should you get your money back for the lack of the feature? Of course you should.

CA closes corporate tax ‘loophole,’ but doesn’t get expected bonanza

Chris Reed January 27, 2014

The argument that raising taxes cuts revenue because it deters taxable economic activity leads to a tired fight in which obvious facts are ignored by both sides. This claim is sometimes true and sometimes not true. It depends on what

Brown still on loony, increasingly lonely bullet-train bandwagon

Chris Reed January 10, 2014

Cal Watchdog managing editor John Seiler and I were among the pundits who got a telephone budget briefing from Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday afternoon. I was disappointed but unsurprised to hear that the governor is still 1,000 percent on

Michal Bloomberg’s candor beats Jerry Brown’s candor — by a mile

Chris Reed December 19, 2013

Jack Dean of the invaluable pensiontsunami.com website sent me a Politicker story about departing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s exit speech that Bloomberg plainly intended to be a historic demarcation of sorts. Bloomberg hammered home the theme that what

McClintock: Ryan budget plan riddled with dishonesty

Chris Reed December 13, 2013

Tom McClintock, once the shrewdest guy in the Legislature, is now among the shrewder people in Congress. Last night the Northern California lawmaker sent out a column trashing the two-year budget compromise approved by the House at the behest of

Santa Monica police a case study in excessive pay driven from top down

Chris Reed December 10, 2013

Santa Monica is one of the great places to be in the world, not just California. It has incredible weather, often in the mid-70s in August when the San Fernando Valley is baking, lots of great restaurants and a surprising

LAO’s cheerfully nutty budget report: Pension crisis? What pension crisis?

Chris Reed November 22, 2013

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has among the best reputations of any state agency. But after the release of Wednesday’s bizarre LAO budget analysis and accompanying press conference by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, I don’t know why. I groused about it