Tag "Wayne Lusvardi"

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Great Recession short-circuits CARB’s Cap and Trade auction

March 5, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Recessions are painful, especially for those who lost their jobs. But there is one upside to less economic activity: lower levels of pollution. Ironically, the Great Recession short-circuited the California Air Resources Board’s auctions

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California on edge of green-power blackouts?

March 2, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Check out the nearby satellite photograph of North Korea at night, showing it as a sea of darkness from  lack of electrical infrastructure compared to glare of lights from modern, industrialized, capitalist South Korea, Japan

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Both sides in water war need smelt to provoke compromise

Feb. 27, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi You probably read the news headlines this past month on the Delta smelt fish with curiosity about what was really going on: * “Delta water diversions reduced to protect smelt” — Feb. 11; * “Once again, water

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Voters can dry up ‘inevitable’ tax on rain

Feb. 25, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi The lyrics to Celine Dion song, “Rain Tax (It’s Inevitable),” suggested that some day government was bound to levy a tax on natural rainfall. By 2009, the California legislature voted to impose just such a

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Freer home sales market draws Californians to Texas

Feb. 21, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi What draws working and middle class Californians to states like Texas is mostly a freer home sales market, which brings lower prices.  A zero state income tax rate and lower business tax rates that

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We predicted there was no tax ‘windfall’

Feb. 19, 2013 By John Seiler The office of Gov. Jerry Brown and the Los Angeles Times finally are catching up with what we reported earlier here on CalWatchDog.com. The Times reports today: “SACRAMENTO — The surge of revenue that

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More fracking would increase CA tax revenue

Feb. 19, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Is California the only state that does not have an oil and gas tax? This is what some politicians and advocates want you to believe and the mainstream media fail to fact check.  But

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Split-roll property tax would hit small business hard

Feb. 18, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi The attacks on Proposition 13 never seem to end. The 1978 tax-cut initiative’s enemies, such as former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, conjure up a misleading image of large corporate owners of commercial real estate dodging

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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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$11.1 billion water bond for 2014 stuck in muddy waters

Feb 11, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Is the third time the charm for an $11.1 billion water bond? Postponed two times by the California Legislature because of budget problems, the bond now is scheduled to be on the November 2014 ballot. The

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