Maybe sell it and make a few bucks for ya. At least before taxes.

California Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor’s recent “The 2015-16 Budget: California’s Fiscal Outlook” forecasts:

“the end of the Proposition 30 PIT [personal income tax] rate increases will not necessarily cause a sudden revenue dropoff—a ‘cliff effect’—for the annual state budget process. Because these rate increases expire at the end of calendar year 2018, it means that state PIT revenues essentially will include an entire fiscal year of Proposition 30 revenues in 2017–18, half a fiscal year of those revenues in 2018–19, and none of the Proposition 30 revenues in 2019–20. Accordingly, if the economy is growing at that time, as our main scenario assumes, then the expiration of Proposition 30 is likely to result in a slowing of PIT revenue growth in 2018–19 and 2019–20, but not an outright decline in PIT revenues.”

So, the main thing is to keep the economy growing. Such as, for example, not increasing taxes even higher by passing expected tax initiatives on the ballot in 2016 and 2018.

Or passing even more extremist anti-business legislation like AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, when — lo these eight years later — Weather.com reported on Nov. 22:

“There have been more than 400 record lows and record cool highs set, covering 43 states, since Sunday. That leaves only five states in the contiguous U.S., all in New England, that have not experienced record cold temperatures this week. 

“On Wednesday morning record lows were broken or tied from New York to Houston. Thursday morning 在线扑克 brought more record cold to parts of the Southeast.”

CalPERS is gettin’ there.

Reports Calpensions.com:

In a few years CalPERS retirees are expected to outnumber active workers, a national trend among public pension funds that makes them more vulnerable to big employer rate increases.

A mature pension fund for a growing number of retirees becomes much larger than the payroll. So if the pension fund has investment losses, an employer rate increase to help fill the hole takes a bigger bite from the payroll.

The growing number of retirees, partly due to aging babyboomers, is one reason a staff report last week argues that CalPERS has too much “risk” and should consider a number of options during a board workshop early next year.

The “employer” stuck with the “rate increase,” of course, is the California taxpayer.

Those who haven’t left.

His other promises — to refuse to increase taxes and to “blow up the 麻将游戏 boxes” of massive government waste — were repudiated with record his record $13 billion tax increase to pay for record spending increases. He left office in 2011 with $20 billion deficits plaguing the state, as well as numerous personal and political scandals and the destruction of the Republican party the “post-partisan” governor ostensibly belonged to.

His 2004 work comp reform actually did work at first. According to a report at the time:

At a Boeing Co. aircraft factory on April 19, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed SB 899, a bill reforming California’s workers’ compensation system. The measure had passed the state assembly 77-3 and the senate 33-3.

“This bill completes a process that brought together Republicans and Democrats, business and labor, and all the affected parties to produce billions of dollars in savings, protect workers, and root out fraud and waste in the system,” Schwarzenegger said in a news release issued the day he signed the bill. “No longer will workers’ compensation be the poison of our economy. Our message to the rest of the country and the world is that California is open for business. We are making our state once again a powerful, job-creating machine.”

Schwarzenegger said the measure “would cut down on fraud and waste, and would also aim to get injured workers back on the job without having to fall back on the legal system.”

“We cannot continue to force our businesses, non-profits, and government agencies to be pummeled by costs 2-1/2 times the national average,” said Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), the bill’s sponsor. “This [legislation] gives California businesses and their workers a fighting chance.”

10 years after

10 years after, it all was for naught. The San Gabriel Tribune reported:

California has been ranked as the most expensive state for workers’ compensation costs, according to a newly released report.

The Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking Summary from Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services shows that California businesses spend $3.48 for every $100 of payroll issued.

That’s 188 percent of the median cost of $1.85 for all 50 states. California was the third most expensive state in 2012 and the fifth most expensive in 2010.

“California’s workers’ compensation system is incredibly inefficient,” said Jerry Azevedo, a spokesman for the California-based Workers’ Compensation Action Network, which seeks to reduce costs for employers and improve services to injured workers. “It does not do a good job of achieving its goal. For as much as employers pay, they don’t get a lot out of it.”

That also applies to injured workers, according to Azevedo.

“You would think that since California has the highest cost system that we’d also have the most generous benefits — but we don’t,” he said. “We plow a lot of money into the system but too little of it ends up in the hands of injured workers.”

Typical of things in California nowadays, the people “helped” didn’t get any help, while the bureaucracy and the lawyers made out like bandits.

The best year for the Schwarzenegger 2004 reforms was 2008, when California ranked 13th best for work comp costs. But now, according to Azevedo:

Since 2009, premium costs in California have climbed by 41 percent due, in part, to an increasing rate of work-injury claims at a time when the rate of claims in most states has been declining,” he said. “California’s system is experiencing more claims for cumulative trauma and those filed post-employment — particularly in the Los Angeles region. Average costs per claim have increased by $30,000 since 2005.

In California, businesses just can win.

By Chris Reed

In 2008, when I renewed my vehicle registration online at www.ca.dmv.gov, I ended up laughing raucously.

Why? Because when I finished the 90-second process, the DMV website had this message:

“CONGRATULATIONS!

“Your online registration renewal was successful!”

Huh? As I wrote back then on my old blog, the DMV evidently thought that Californians are so starved for praise that successfully completing a short, simple transaction deserved a “CONGRATULATIONS!”

That made me think of former Silicon Valley state lawmaker John Vasconcellos, who saw raising self-esteem as the key to societal bliss and in 1986 got the state government to create a task force promoting self-esteem. (In 2010, K. Lloyd Billingsley had a funny piece on CalWatchdog about it.)

So what was up? Had Vasconcellos quietly taken over the leadership of DMV? Was he serving as a senior adviser?

A second home in Maui? That would help one’s self-esteem

Nope. Googling showed that Vasconcellos was still pursuing his New Agey agenda, and, according to a 2005 Mercury-News story, splitting his time between Santa Clara and Maui. When on Maui, he told the SJMN, he snorkeled and swam every day. As I noted in 2008, it would do wonders for most people’s self-esteem if they could have a second home on Maui.

Anyways, last night, I did my vehicle renewal at www.dmv.ca.gov, and to my vast disappointment, I didn’t receive the old note when I was done. No all-caps congratulations. No exclamation points saluting my savvy. Just a “Thank you for doing business with the California Department of Motor Vehicles.”

I cried myself to sleep.

OK, not really.