State, feds on collision course over “sanctuary” policies

Good morning. TGIT. If today is anything like yesterday, buckle up. 

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration would block federal funding for cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration laws, with Democratic leaders in the state vowing to fight back.

A handful of California cities, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, have so-called “sanctuary” policies, which prompted the federal action. And in a statement of defiance, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon said he would fast track his bill to make California a sanctuary state. 

“(T)he Senate will expedite the process to pass my bill, SB54, to prevent state and local tax dollars and law enforcement resources from being used to help ICE destroy families and damage our economy,” the Los Angeles Democrat said. 

But even as Democratic leaders strongly push to protect the sanctuary policies, the public is split. A Hoover Institution poll from earlier this month showed that 40 percent of voters support sanctuary policies, while 41 oppose (19 percent didn’t seem to care either way). 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• Pensions: “The mayor of El Monte, a cash-strapped San Gabriel Valley city with many retired employees drawing two pensions, says there’s ‘no rational justification’ for the extraordinary, taxpayer-funded generosity. But at the same time, Mayor Andre Quintero says there’s nothing city officials can do about the situation in the near term.” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• Sanctuary backlash: “Assistance promised to victims and law enforcement in response to the Dec. 2 terrorist attack is among the funding potentially jeopardized by President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking assistance to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.” The San Bernardino County Sun has more. 

• Unfunded liability: “California faces a $76.67 billion cost to provide health care and dental benefits to retired state employees, state Controller Betty Yee reported Wednesday, an increase of $2.49 billion over the previous year’s estimate,” reports The Sacramento Bee. 

• Drought: “Hammered with record rainstorms and blizzards, nearly half of California is no longer in a drought, and the rest saw dramatic improvement over the past week, federal scientists reported Thursday. Overall, 49 percent of the state is now drought free, the highest level since April 2013, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor,” reports The San Jose Mercury News.

Legislature:

• In at 9 a.m. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

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“Four years ago, voters approved Proposition 30, which raised the income tax significantly on the wealthiest Californians and raised the sales tax a tiny bit on everyone,” Capital Public Radio recently recalled. “That quarter-of-a-cent increase equated to paying an additional $0.01 on a $4 coffee; $1 on a $400 television; and $100 on a $40,000 car.” But on Election Day 2016, that changed. “Voters extended Proposition 30’s income tax increases in [November’s] presidential election with Proposition 55 — but that initiative allowed the Prop. 30 sales tax hike to expire.”

The shift means California’s sales tax is the state’s only tax to be decreased this year, from 7.5 percent to 7.25 percent. As the U-T reported, “Some local jurisdictions tack on their own assessments, so residents in certain areas will still pay more than the statewide rate.” In certain parts of the state, like the San Francisco Bay Area, voters allowed substantial increases. 

From spending to taxing

Prop. 30 ushered in the so-called Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012, as California voters threw their support behind increased spending on state education and benefits. “The act increased sales tax and income tax rates to help maintain funding levels for public schools and colleges and pay for programs for seniors and low-income families,” U-T San Diego noted. “The additional revenue also provided local governments with a constitutional guarantee of funding to comply with a new state law that shifted lower-level offenders from state prisons to county jails.”

Some municipalities, particularly in parts of the state that joined a Democrat-led initiative to hike minimum wages, opted to raise more funds. “Bay Area voters this year generously approved taxing themselves in large numbers — and they’ll feel the pinch at the cash register in 2017 as local sales taxes across Silicon Valley take effect even as a state tax expires,” according to the San Jose Mercury News. 

“As California cities struggle to fund basic city services like police, fire protection, libraries and parks, they’re increasingly turning to voters for help. And voters this year said ‘yes’ to tax hikes in at least eight Bay Area cities in exchange for fewer potholes, less traffic and more cops, including San Jose, Newark, Martinez and Pleasant Hill.”

Pension pinch

For years, public pension costs have steadily built pressure on Golden State cities. In some areas, the problem has become egregious: The city of El Monte, in Southern California, shelled out 28 percent of its general fund to pay retirement costs. “Among California’s 10 largest cities, only San Jose paid as much toward retirement costs relative to its general fund. Los Angeles spends 20 percent of its general fund on retirement costs,” the Los Angeles Times revealed. “El Monte’s outsize pension bill weighs heavily on the San Gabriel Valley city of 116,000, where half the residents were born outside the United States and a quarter live below the poverty line.” 

Meanwhile, CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, has struggled with its own imbalanced budgets. “CalPERS has 65 cents for every dollar that it needs to provide pension benefits for almost two million people,” Fox Business recently recalled. “CalPERS pension debt is roughly $164 billion and mostly likely will grow larger in coming years.” 

In an effort to come to grips with the problem, the fund reduced its forecasted return on investment from 7.5 to 7 percent. “It has been paying out $5 billion more a year in benefits than it’s receiving in contributions and investment returns, not a sustainable trend,” the Fresno Bee noted in an editorial. “With investment returns averaging 4.6 percent during the past decade, some experts urged CalPERS to reduce its forecast even more.” But that would risk pushing more California cities toward bankruptcy — or toward even higher local taxes. 

By John Seiler

In the great Clint Eastwood Western “The Outlaw Josie Wales,” the Yankee Terrill says, “Doin’ right ain’t got no end.”

So it is with busybodies everywhere. They just won’t leave us alone.

The California Center for Public Health Advocacy just sent out a press release:

“The City of El Monte’s City Council unanimously voted to put a soda tax measure on the November ballot at their meeting last night.

“With this vote, El Monte becomes the second city in California, after Richmond, to propose taxing soda and other sugary drinks as a way to counter their unprecedented childhood obesity crisis. El Monte has the ninth highest rate of childhood overweight and obesity out of 250 cities in California, according to a recent study released by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA).

“Overweight and obesity affect more than half (50.2 percent) of the children in the city of El Monte.”

The tax would raise $7 million a year. That’s assuming city serfs don’t trek to neighboring cities to slake their soda cravings.

Of course, it’s just a coincidence that the city has financial problems because, reported the L.A. Times:

“El Monte has also awarded generous benefits to some of its top employees. Former Police Chief Thomas Armstrong, who retired in May 2011, collected nearly $430,000 in his final year with the city through a combination of salary and payouts for unused time off. Armstrong and two other former police chiefs now receive yearly CalPERS pensions of more than $200,000.”

So the real bloat in the city is the obese compensation — salaries and pensions — given to unionized government workers. To pay for that, they’re going to loot kids and their parents even more.

After all, the cops and firefighters have huge bills for donuts.