Interviewed by CalWatchDog.com’s James Poulos, Peter Schiff says we have to admit we have a problem … and we all need a lot of economic rehab.

According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation, in the last decade median household income crashed by 1/3, from $87,992 in 2003 to $56,335 in 2013. The crash started during the Republican Bush administration, but has not been made better by the Democratic Obama administration.

Control of Congress also was roughly half Republican, half Democratic during this period. But until Janet Yellen took over this year, the Federal Reserve Board was run by Republicans Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. So the Fed inflationism we have suffered, with prices going up as you see every day, mostly must be blamed on the GOP.

Here’s the chart:

So it’s a bipartisan disaster, with Republicans shouldering perhaps 55 percent of the blame, Democrats 45 percent.

At least we found out again, as if we needed to rerun the 1970s, that Fed inflationism and increased regulations (from President George W. Bush and the GOP congresses, as well as from President Barack Obama and the Democratic congresses), plus tax increases and wild spending increases don’t work. And unlike in the 1970s, when deficits were modest in comparison, deficits and debt don’t help, either.

The numbers also show that the “recovery” is a fraud. We’re just in a slightly less bad period of an ongoing recession caused by massive government confiscation and control of the economy.

And take a look at this chart:

It shows that, beginning with the Reagan tax cuts and recovery, wealth grew for every percentile of income except the poorest one (yellow squares), which at least held steady. The growth continued through the 1990s, when Democratic President Clinton first increased taxes, then cut taxes with the help of Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

It was only under Bush that wealth crashed, with the poor getting hurt the most, their wealth being almost entirely wiped out. Obama the didn’t make things any better, except slightly for the poor.

Median wealth now is lower than before the Reagan reforms, meaning the years of progress under Reagan and Clinton have been completely wiped out — and reversed.

“We now find that California's state budget situation is even more promising than we projected one year ago,” stated a report on the 2014-15 budget by the Legislative Analyst's Office. “The state's budgetary condition is stronger than at any point in the past decade.”

The estimation represents a surprising turnaround for California, which had been wallowing in a $26 billion deficit only three years ago, when Brown took office after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had failed in his 2003 promises to end “the crazy deficit spending.”

“We have climbed out of a hole with a Proposition 30 tax,” Gov. Jerry Brown announced during budget negotiations last May. He was referring to the $7 billion tax increase voters passed in Nov. 2012.

Raises

The following are some items to look for in Brown's budget proposal to see how, or if, they are accounted for.

On July 1, state workers will begin enjoying 2.5 percent pay raises Brown negotiated for them. That will be followed by another 2 percent on July 1, 2015. Brown explained:

“If I characterize it to please the critics, then I might say that it’s good for the taxpayer.  And if I’m trying to get it ratified, I’ll say it’s a helluva deal for the workers.  So either way, I will err – and therefore, I will say nothing more than it’s fair.”

SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said:

“We have achieved each of the four top priorities identified by our members. Protecting retirement security, preserving our 80/20 health benefit premiums, no new furloughs or PLP [Personal Leave Program] days and a wage increase for everyone.”

High-speed rail 

In his budget proposal, Brown is expected to advance spending millions of dollars on the state's controversial high-speed rail project. The money would come from penalty fees assessed by the California Air Resources Board on California businesses for carbon emissions.

Yet a congressional committee is in the middle of a probe of California’s high-speed rail project over charges of conflicts of interest and questionable spending of federal dollars.
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The projected high-speed rail costs have varied from an original estimate of $33 billion, to an official high estimate of $98.5 billion, and back down to $68.4 billion. But the Legislative Analyst’s Office warned it is “highly uncertain if funding to complete the high-speed rail system will ever materialize.”

New taxes?

Senate Bill 768, by Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, proposes to more than triple California’s cigarette excise tax from $0.87 to $2.87, amounting to a $2 tax increase on every pack of cigarettes, which would increase the price to about $9 per pack in grocery stores, a little less in tobacco stores. The tax would also extend to cigars.

SB768  is backed by the same coalition which supported Proposition 29, a failed $1-a-pack tax initiative voters rejected in June 2012: the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, the Service Employees International Union and Health Access California.

These longtime proponents of cigarette tax increases said Prop. 29′s narrow defeat justified bringing it back through the Legislature. The groups also stand to benefit from the estimated $1.4 billion raised by the tax because much of the money would go into medical research and anti-tobacco programs.

A big potential problem would be an increase in the cigarette black market from the higher prices. This has happened in high-cig tax New York City, where 60 percent of cigarettes are black-market smokes.

Debt

Despite the rosy predictions for budget surpluses, the governor's own May 2013 Revision to his budget proposal cautioned the state still does not set aside “significant money” to address the more than $100 billion in unfunded state employee pensions. It also found the state has not set aside enough money to cover the $63.8 billion in unfunded liabilities for retired state employee health care, and “that liability increases by billions of dollars each year.”

There is also the additional $71 billion in unfunded liabilities for the California State Teachers Retirement System, which according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office requires $4.5 billion in additional annual spending in order to maintain solvency.

Moody’s said California’s unfunded pension liabilities for state and local governments actually could be even much higher, totaling more than $329 billion.

I’ve received calls from EDD employees with tales of lazy coworkers and strange office work conditions one would usually only find in Hollywood sitcoms.

“The Office” has nothing on the EDD, according to EDD employees I spoke with. But even with the lazy, napping, snoring, or movie-watching co-workers, EDD workers say there is no shortage of employees to process unemployment claims.

No shortage of EDD employees

Several EDD employees told me they believe the upper management at the EDD is allowing the massive unpaid claims debacle to continue in order to show the Legislature and governor that the agency needs more funding, and more personnel hired.

But  several of the workers I spoke with, some of who have been with the EDD for more than 10 and 20 years, say the problem is a lack of leadership within the agency.

Why else would EDD employees be allowed to watch movies on their iPads all day? Or snore loudly while they nap? Or make personal phone calls — for hours? EDD employees reported that coworkers really do this.

The tales I heard did not sound as if they were coming from disgruntled employees either. I was a Human Resources Director for 20 years. I am relatively adept at identifying real workplace complaints, or employees who feel unappreciated.

EDD employees turn phones off?

One EDD employee told me most of her co-workers shuffle papers all day, killing time. She said many of the workers turn the EDD desk phones off, and refuse to take phone calls from claimants. Instead, so they don’t have to take phone calls, they fight over the mail. “They should be answering phone calls, but they don’t,” she said.

Another EDD employee told me about a co-worker who watches movies all day long on his iPad. She said his desk is right next to the supervisor’s office.

Another EDD employee said one of his coworkers snores loudly when she naps at her desk. He said supervisors walk by the napping employees and movie watchers, but never correct the behavior.

Of the EDD employees who contacted me, all said supervisors are either busy socializing with coworkers, or never come out of their offices.

“People turn off the phones,” one EDD employee said. “They don’t even answer the calls. The lack of work ethic these people have comes form the very top,” she added. “Nobody is accountable for anything.”

Holiday parties

One EDD employee who said she’s been with the agency 22 years, said staff are spending entire work days decorating the offices for the holidays, and planning holiday parties. “They are bored,” she said. “I am amazed at how much time they spend planning parties, and they are pulling in overtime wages.”

In her office, she also said EDD employees watch television shows on their iPads, right in front of supervisors.  “Some are sleeping at their desks. This is insane!” she added.

“There is no shortage of manpower,” she said. “The EDD did that massive hiring with the funding from the Obama administration. There’s no lack of staff.”

“I called that dude Henry Perea,” she said, referring to Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno. Perea is chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee, and held a hearing in November about the EDD computer failures, which left tens of thousands of claimants without their anticipated unemployment checks.

“I left him a message telling him about what goes on in my office,” she added. “I’ve been with the EDD 22 years, and it’s never been like this… this bad.”

“And the good employees, we’re watched like hawks,” another EDD employee told me. “If we’re productive, they deliberately slow our work down,” he said.

“It’s no wonder in the annual survey of best and worse run state governments, we’re always ranked the worst managed state,” he said. “And EDD is the worst of the worst.”

Links for my Three-Part Series: Part 1, an interview with EDD Spokesman Dan Stephens, is here. Part 2, “EDD computers must be fixed by Dec. 31,” is here. Part 3, “Employment Development Computer system not yet fixed,” is here.

Shiroma, a Democrat, was an outspoken opponent of 2010’s Proposition 23, which would have suspended AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, until unemployment in the state dropped to 5.5 percent. Shiroma was also Board Chairwoman of the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District.

A 2009 study of AB 32, “Cost of AB 32 on California Small Businesses,” was by two Cal State Sacramento economists, Sanjay B. Varshney and Dennis H. Tootelian. It found that AB 32 would kill 1 million jobs by 2020.

On farming specifically, the study found that small farm businesses would be hit with $498 million in additional costs for AB 32 compliance due to increased prices for fuel, machinery, fertilizer, etc. Farm income would decline by $195 million. Farm workers would lose $101 million in income. And 3,671 jobs at small farms would be killed.

Despite such warnings, Prop. 23 was opposed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then-gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown and most of the state’s political establishment.

In her comments at a 2010 Sacramento event, Genevieve Shiroma, also president of the board of directors for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, said the utility helps to advance economic development and create jobs through its environmental programs, the Sacramento Press reported in 2010, in “Johnson, SMUD official protest Prop. 23.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson, Shiroma, and other representatives from public agencies and businesses receiving green subsidies said that Prop. 23 would harm the environment, green businesses and air quality.

“AB 32 has provided the vital regulatory certainty needed for venture capital investment, entrepreneurial innovation and market development to prosper in California,” Shiroma said while President of the Board of Directors for SMUD.

If Shirmoa had taken a different position on Prop. 23, it’s doubtful Brown would have re-appointed her as board chair.

After a highly funded demonization campaign, voters roundly rejected AB 23, 62 percent to 38 percent.

Part 1 of the ARLB series, What is the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, can be found here.

Part 2 of the series is background on Shiroma, and can be found here.

Elizabeth Emken says it is a good time to be a Republican. She’s running for California’s 7th Congressional district, currently held by freshman Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat.

If Emken’s name sounds familiar it is because she was the GOP’s U.S. Senate nominee in California in 2012 against Democrat Sen. Diane Feinstein.

‘Unring the bell on Obamacare’

Health care is a passionate issue for Emken. “America has some of the finest hospitals, physicians and nurses the world has ever known,” she told me during a recent interview. “We also have a health care system that is struggling with issues of affordability and access.”

“The Obama administration will blame big bad insurance companies,” Emken said. “The irony is it may ‘cover everyone,’ but it will further bifurcate. Prior to 2009, we were working out health care and insurance issues. We were starting to deal with the base inequities between large and small insurance plans, by pushing to open up competition. The competitive pressure problem will only be fixed when we take on the tax code. But President Obama has no desire to deal with the debt, deficit or tax code – because no political good can come from fixing the tax code.”

Currently, Emken explained, employers are encouraged by the federal tax system to be the purchasers of health insurance. Individual persons do not get the tax deduction for insurance. Attempting to contain costs, employers have opted for the various forms of managed care.

“The Supreme Court ruling [approving the program] brought Obamacare’s hidden taxes to the light of day,” Emken said. “With a price tag double what the Democrats promised and growing exponentially every day, the ‘Affordable Care Act’ may be the most ironic title for a major bill in the history of Congress.

Repeal

Emken wants what she calls “Obama’s dishonest attempt at health care reform” to be repealed before its regulations and price controls further damage the availability and quality of health care. “It should be replaced with policies that target specific health market concerns: quality, affordability and access,” she said. “We need a transformational realignment that moves us back toward a system that is affordable and once again, at its core, consists of a medical provider, and a patient, in an exam room.

“Obamacare has undermined positive health care reforms that have been under way since the late 1990s and its skyrocketing costs have become a major deterrent to America’s corporate stability. Even more alarming for individual taxpayers and families, congressional budget analysts are now estimating that nearly 6 million Americans — most of them middle class — will have to pay a penalty for not getting health insurance once Obamacare is fully in place.”

Emken plans on taking this issue to Bera, a medical doctor who campaigned in 2012 as “Dr. Ami Bera.” He beat Rep. Dan Lungren, the Republican incumbent and former California attorney general. Taking back the seat is a key goal of state and national Republicans for retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I’ve not found one doctor who likes Obamacare,” Emken said. Bera has supported Obamacare, and voted against the repeal, according to his official Congressional website.

The campaign

Emken called it a time of a lack of jobs. “Small business is feeling crushed,” she said. “The anti-business environment is really felt in my district.”

Emken said smaller businesses in particular are struggling with current healthcare issues, as well as staggering regulations. “There’s a malaise of sorts,” she said. “There’s a disbelief that government can or will fix anything.”

Emken said that what sets her apart from Bera, and her Republican opponents, is her experience and family. “People are desperate for leaders who know what their families are going through,” she said. “And, they believe government is part of the problem.”

Emken worked in management, financial analysis and corporate operations at IBM as an efficiency and cost cutting expert, helping streamline operations, eliminate waste, and save the company millions of dollars.

After her son was diagnosed with autism, Emken began a second career as an executive with Autism Speaks, advocating for developmentally disabled children

She led the national charge, fighting for transparency and accountability on how the National Institutes of Health would spend autism research dollars. Her efforts produced a portfolio analysis of autism spending that would have to withstand public scrutiny — a policy Emken said should apply throughout the entire government.

Senate race 2012

Emken’s U.S. Senate race was particularly interesting because Feinstein refused to debate Emken. Feinstein acted as if the 2012 race for the U.S. Senate was a coronation, and was the only U.S. Senator running for reelection who would not debate her opponent. Voters in California were denied key questions that Emken would have brought to Feinstein about the forthcoming Obamacare implementation.

Emken hopes Bera will debate her, and said she would like the Sacramento Bee to host a debate forum during the primary.

2014 race

But even with three years to set up the health exchanges and support system, HealthCare.gov has been unavailable to those trying to sign up for government health care since it went live Oct. 1.

The proclamation “The Health Insurance Marketplace is Open!” is falling on deaf ears.

Single-payer system ahead

Since the passage of “Obamacare” as it is usually called, many in America have warned that the real goal all along has really been a single-payer heath system. This explanation goes a long way in explaining the substantial flaws in Obamacare, and why implementation of the massive government health plan system is already a nightmare, and slated for total failure.

This isn't the first attempt at total government  health care; it's just the first plan to have been passed by Congress.

California single-payer system

Even in California, attempts to create a single-payer health system have been attempted. Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, authored SB 810,  which would have created the California Healthcare System, a single-payer health care system, administered by the California Healthcare Agency, to provide health insurance coverage to all California residents. But Leno could not pass the two-year bill and it died. But that was just the first try. Count on seeing another single-payer health care system bill next year.

Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made California the first state to create an insurance exchange after Obamacare was passed. The health exchanges are supposed to be Internet-based places to shop for health benefits, for people who do not get health benefits at work. But Covered California has been as problematic as HeathCare.gov.

Shortly after Schwarzenegger’s creation of the exchange, the Obama administration approved $10 billion for California to begin expanding coverage to its poorest residents, another key part of the new law.

The long road to a Single-payer system

A single-payer health care system would mean the government pays hospitals and doctors directly for every person's health care. Unlike socialized medicine, where the government owns the hospitals, pharmacies and medical clinics, and doctors are government employees, single-payer is more like Medicaid or Medi-Care.

The drumbeat toward single payer health in America has been present in every Democrat Presidential administration since 1912, when then presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt, campaigned on the Progressive Party ticket and called for establishment of a national health insurance system.

In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt seriously considered a national health insurance program that would cover every American.

In 1945, President Harry Truman called on Congress to begin a ten-year plan to transform the existing American health care system into compulsory health coverage for all people.

In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating the government run Medicare and Medicaid programs, to provide health care coverage for people aged 65 and older, and for the poor, and disabled.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon backed a proposal requiring employers to provide a minimum level of health insurance for their workers while also maintaining competition among private insurance companies.

When Jimmy Carter was elected U.S. President in 1976, he immediately called for a national health insurance system with mandatory coverage.

But each of these attempts were scrapped because of nationwide financial crises.

The 1986 Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, requiring hospitals to accept all emergency-room patients. It also began the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, known as COBRA, which requires employers to allow employees to remain on and pay for their for  group health plan, following termination or resignation.

In 1993 during his first year in office, President Bill Clinton tried to enact HillaryCare. The Clinton health plan would have required all U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens to enroll in a qualified health plan, and specifically forbade their “disenrollment” [sic] until covered by another plan.

HillaryCare was soundly defeated.

In 2003 when Barack Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, he told the Illinois AFL-CIO, “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.”

“A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately,” Obama said. “Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

During the 2008 Presidential election, candidate Obama said during a January 2008 debate, “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would set up a single-payer system.”

President Obama made clear he was determined to see a single-payer system created, but when Democrats couldn’t get the votes needed, health insurance experts say instead they created a law so complex, it would have to fail. Then, the America people would be so angry, they would eventually demand a European style, single payer system.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 4, by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills. It imposes the most stringent regulations in the country on hydraulic fracturing and other oil and natural gas production.

“Oil companies will not be allowed to frack or acidize in California unless they test the groundwater, notify neighbors and list each and every chemical on the Internet,” Pavley said. “This is a first step toward greater transparency, accountability and protection of the public and the environment.”

Yet despite 10 amended versions, passage of SB4 isn’t what environmentalists wanted. They wanted a complete ban. “The only solution to the fracking threat is a complete ban,” MoveOn.org said.

What SB4 does

Bill analysis shows SB4 requires regulations to be created and adopted by the State Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal, in consultation with the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the California Air Resources Board, the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery and any local air districts and regional water quality control boards in areas where fracking may occur.

SB4 specifically establishes a “comprehensive regulatory program” for oil and gas well stimulation treatments. It includes, among many other requirements, a new study, the development of numerous regulations and a new permitting process, leaving oversight agencies ample opportunity to add regulations as they see fit.

In a petition demanding Pavley drop the bill, MoveOn.org said, “Continue to be the environmental hero we know you to be and withdraw your bill and fight for a ban on fracking.”

“Pavley’s intentions were good,” MoveOn.org said. “She thought regulations would help protect the environment and the public. But no amount of regulations can insure that fracking can be done safely.”

SB4 provides a variety of tools to state regulatory entities:

* Adds regional groundwater monitoring in the vicinity of oil and gas fields;

* Requires the State Water Resources Control Board to “develop model criteria with input from experts and stakeholders”;

* Requires the State Water Resources Control Board to perform the monitoring in “high priority areas”;

* Adds groundwater monitoring to the well stimulation treatment permit requirement;

* Requires the state to complete a statewide environmental impact report;

* Requires that the ingredient list of trade secret chemical additives used in hydraulic fracking be disclosed.

Although SB4 passed, the above regulations still must be implemented by state agencies. The following years will show whether the regulation is light, allowing for extensive energy development and higher tax revenues; or heavy, as environmentalists wish, keeping California off the bandwagon of the national energy boom.

The sides have been drawn up and the stakes for California are high.

No. 1

October 3, the day the federal government was shut down, a Wall Street Journal story announced, “US Rises to No. 1 Energy Producer.” And on the same day, an environmental group quietly released a report calling for a complete ban of fracking.

The goal to put more limitations on the oil-and-gas industry would result in the increase in America's dependence on foreign oil, according to analysts. This is perplexing, as environmentalist groups have been leading the cry for decades for the U.S. to decrease its dependence on foreign oil.

California is the fourth-largest oil producing state in the country, recently surpassed by North Dakota. Oil and gas production has been steadily declining in the state, falling by 50 percent since 1985.

California lawmakers have instead turned their attention to wind and solar, and other types of alternative energy, with a focus on implementing the Renewable Portfolio Standard, passed in 2011. The RPS requires the state to be using 33 percent renewable energy by 2020.

Sitting on a potential 21st century gold rush, California is home to the Monterey Shale Formation, a 1,700 square mile oil-bearing shale formation primarily in the San Joaquin Valley, that contains an estimated 15.4 billion barrels of oil. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates the shale formation holds more than 15 billion barrels of oil accessible through advanced oil extraction technologies, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking.”

Could fracking save the California economy?

“The U.S. shale-oil boom might roll back the clock to the 1960s, when a U.S. oil surplus (via the Texas Railroad Commission), put Washington, not Riyadh, as the world's swing producer,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. Myers Jaffe is executive director of energy and sustainability at University of California at Davis Graduate School of Management, and is the former director of the Energy Forum at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Could California's fracking industry be the answer to the state's high unemployment, high gas prices, perpetual budget deficits and growing dependence on foreign oil? According to a recent study by economists at the University of Southern California, development of the Monterey Shale between 2015 and 2030 could:

* Create as many as 2.8 million new jobs;

* Grow personal income by an average of up to 10 percent;

* Generate up to $24.6 billion in new tax revenues for state and local government services.

North Dakota and Texas have developed hydraulic fracturing for oil production. Both states have seen significant drops in unemployment, as well as enormous increases in tax and income revenues.

Prosperity produced by the shale boom has been so abundant that people are earning six-figure incomes with little or no experience working in the oil fields.  In some parts of North Dakota, unemployment has gone below 1 percent, and a town in Canada called Fort McMurray was nicknamed “Fort McMoney” because of the wealth of good jobs available.

Misinformation on fracking

But according to MoveOn.org, fracking is dangerous to the environment. “Five percent of well casings leak immediately and 50 percent within the first 20 years,” MoveOn.org said on a petition to stop SB4. “Toxic chemicals will get into the ground water. It is happening everywhere. And there are leaks and spills of toxic frack fluids and wastewater happening everywhere.”

“However, even if fracking could be done safely, it still uses too much water in a state experiencing chronic drought,” MoveOn.org added. “Injecting the wastewater back into the ground has caused earthquakes in states not even known for earthquakes. Fracking could destroy the food and wine industries, which are more important economically to the state than oil.”

Statements like MoveOn.org's are incorrect, according to a University of Michigan report on hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking is limited to the process of injecting fluids into a well — just a few days of a multi-month operation (not counting leasing and permitting).

“This widespread misunderstanding explains why the repeated lies have taken hold. One of the most rampant lies about fracking made by the environmentalists is about water.”

Environmentalists against fracking

Food and Water Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Sierra Club warn oil development in California could negatively impact endangered species, including the San Joaquin kit fox, the California condor, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, South Central Coast steelhead and native oak woodlands.

These fracking opponents said one of their main objections to SB4 is a provision in the bill to protect the “trade secrets” of the oil companies, and make it a crime to disclose them. “While the bill requires the disclosure of some of the chemicals used in fracking, the bill still allows the companies to claim trade secret protections on others,” MoveOn.org said.

“Fran Pavley, withdraw your bad fracking bill,” the MoveOn.org petition said.

But Pavely did not, and instead, SB4 was passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

Rather than being mindful of the state's weak electricity grid and sky-high electricity rates, Brown's office sent out a press release announcing the six-bill package, clearly designed to prop up the weak electric car market.

Brown called it “California’s burgeoning electric vehicle market.”

“Today, we reaffirm our commitment in California to an electric vehicle future,” Brown said as he signed the bills.

But that “burgeoning electric vehicle market” is a fairy tale. Electric cars are significantly more expensive than standard combustion engine vehicles or clean diesel vehicles. The range of less than 100 miles for most of these cars is not realistic for most drivers, and sales are low. Currently electric cars make up only 0.3 percent of U.S. sales, according to nearly every news story I find.

The great green fib

While electric car manufacturers and media portray electric cars as all-clean, “zero emissions” vehicles, the cars are still polluters and can generate the emissions of a conventional car running on gas or diesel.

“The main difference is that while a conventional car’s emissions come out of the vehicle’s exhaust pipe, those created by an electric car are generated at the power station which supplies the electricity,” British consumer watchdog Which? reported. “It’s even less clear with so called ‘emission-free’ electric cars. The electricity powering them has to be generated somewhere, and that’s more likely to use fossil fuels than renewables.”

Green is bad for business

California threatened rolling blackouts this past summer due to the tapped out electrical grid. The state's residents were told to conserve electricity, and not use clothes washers and dryers and household appliances until the evening, and limit air conditioning during the hottest days.

But now the governor is propping up the electric car market, attempting to create a demand where there is none. It will add a whole new segment of electricity users in California, which is already facing an energy crisis in the near future.

As it currently stands, even if a quarter of the state's cars were already electric, the electricity grid would crash.

Additionally, the Renewable Portfolio Mandate, one of the most stringent renewable standards in the country, was passed by the California Legislature in 2011. The RPS will require the state to acquire 33 percent renewable energy for all of the state's power by 2020. Yet as of now, California has no new power plants coming online. And the San Onofre nuclear plant has been shut down permanently. With wind and solar power unreliable and intermittent, we can anticipate a state-created and mandated energy crises in the near future.

California's “burgeoning electric car market”

The media make electric cars sound as if they are selling like the hot new iPhone 5C. “After a record-setting month in August, plug-in electric car sales moderated in September while the overall U.S. vehicle market surged,” Green Car Reports reported today. “The Chevrolet Volt, the best-selling plug-in car after almost three years, registered 1,766 deliveries — little more than half the record-setting number of 3,351 sold in August.”

Compare sales of the Chevy Volt with the popular Ford F-150 pickup truck. According to a September story in USA Today, Ford Motors, up 12 percent in overall sales, reported August sales of F-series pickups topped 70,000 for the month. If Ford maintains 70,000 F-150 sales every month, the company would top 840,000 pickups sold in one year — the amount close to what Ford sold prior to the Great Recession and high gas prices.

Meanwhile, the electric car fairy tale continues. “Sales of electric cars have more than doubled in the U.S. during the first six months of 2013,” AOL Autos reported. “Americans have purchased 41,447 plug-in electric vehicles since January.”

Automakers sold 14.5 million total vehicles in the U.S. market in 2012. Auto analysts predict auto sales will likely hit 16 million units sold by year end.

The high cost of green

The Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid only goes 38 miles on electricity before its gas-powered generator kicks in. And the base cost for the car is $35,000, recently lowered $5,000 by General Motors because the cars weren't selling. Chevy also offers the all-electric Chevy Spark subcompact which can go 82 miles on a charge, for a mere $26,685. Electric cars are eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, and a $2,500 tax credit in California.

If your tastes are more exotic, Tesla Motors also has an all-electric model. Tesla claims the car can go up to 265 miles on a single charge, but that claim was discredited by the ultimate gear head show, Top Gear, which found the expensive electric car could only make about half of the 265 mile range claim.

So, for a 133 mile electric charge range, one can purchase a Tesla for only a starting price of $71,000. But in Sacramento, some of the cars are selling for about $98,000, out-the-door.

And the Tesla isn't as green as some say it is. “The total effective CO2 emissions of an 85 kWh Model S sedan are 547g per mile — considerably more than a large SUV, such as a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which emits 443g per mile!” reported Anthony Watts, a former meteorologist who operates a weather technology and content business, and the website Watts Up With That?

Yet, the Chevy Cruze, a standard internal combustion engine vehicle, of which 23,909 vehicles sold in August, costs only $16,569, gets 25 miles per gallon in the city, and 39 mpg on the highway.

What 'green' really looks like

Chevy also makes the Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel, which costs $17,170. The Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel can travel approximately 717 highway miles, or more than 10 hours of driving, on one tank of diesel fuel.

The Chevy Cruze Clean Diesel is proof that the electric car technology isn't ready for prime time, but clean diesel engines are.

“Experts at Which? compared the carbon dioxide created by charging electric cars with that emitted by the most efficient diesel models and concluded: 'Sometimes there’s not a great deal of difference,'” The UK Daily Mail reported. “And the gap is narrowing as 'conventional' cars up their game to cut emissions.”

The Which? report noted, “The common manufacturer claim that electric cars produce ‘zero emissions’ ignores the fact that most drivers use a conventional electricity supply to charge them, which has a carbon cost from burning fossil fuels.”

Information about the six electric car bills can be found on Gov. Jerry Brown's official website. 

Here’s a YouTube of famed investor Jim Rogers. He points out that the 2007-09 recession was so bad because of the massive debt run up from 2001-2007 under the Republican Bush administration and the mostly Republican Congress. By contrast, the 1999-00 recession wasn’t so bad because, it’s hard to remember, we actually had surpluses for two years, thanks to Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congresses of those days.

As Rogers points out, the next recession will be a doozy because the debt now is much higher even than it was in 2007.

Fed Chairman Bernanke, as Rogers says, has brought us “prosperity” only by printing money and keeping interest rates at 0 percent. Lucky him, he’s leaving office soon and won’t get blamed for the crash (except by guys like Rogers and me).

This deep recession, perhaps a Depression, will hit California’s state and local finances harder than the 2007-09 recession did. We’re going to see more bankruptcies. Instead of increasing spending and insisting California is “back,” Gov. Jerry Brown will be forced to cut spending again.

With Halloween approaching, to quote my Michigan landsman Alice Cooper, “Welcome to my nightmare.”