3 in 10 Californians identify with the Tea Party

This California resident agrees!

Voters to California: Drop dead

55% of American voters think the federal government should just let the state of California file bankruptcy, Rasmussen reported.

Only 27% say the state should be bailed out.

“53% say the state should cut back on welfare programs, health services and the state payroll,” Rasmussen noted.

Many a business today has empty desks. There is no reason a state government should be immune from this reality.

"Private sector job growth does nothing to increase union dues … only the further expansion of government does."

Public Sector Unions Are Killing California

The public sector union takeover of government is not confined to California. As Heritage fellow James Sherk reported earlier this year, for the first time in history most union members work for the government, not the private sector. The days when “union member” meant an American working in a steel plant, or coal mine, or auto factory are gone. Today, unions are dependent on government, not the private sector, for their livelihood. Therefore, unions have little interest in private sector job growth. Private sector jobs don’t help fund political campaigns. But government jobs do. The change in incentives has been devastating to American taxpayers. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga explains why:

In the private sector … employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers.

This is why you see big labor supporting Obamacare and cap and trade taxes. Private sector job growth does nothing to increase union dues … only the further expansion of government does. The result in California has been high taxes, poor services, and a disappearing middle class. But at least Californians can still move to Texas. After the Obama administration is done with our country, we’ll have no place left to move to.

"Feinstein's latest effort to block the development of clean, renewable energy facilities"

Solar Power Is Wonderful, Really, Except When You Build It Anywhere Near Anything

"When you start making stuff up, anything goes. If only the governor’s fantasies didn’t have such dire real-world impacts."

Green fantasies/Governor ignores anti-AB 32 evidence

"Students take out high-interest loans to pay for their increased tuition, while the university gets low-interest bonds to build more buildings."

Views: Lost Trust

On the one hand, President Mark Yudof and the Board of Regents want everyone to blame all of the university's problems on the state. According to the administration’s narrative, the simple issue is that the state has defunded higher education, and due to a $1.2 billion cut from the state, the only thing the campuses can do is raise tuition (which we in California call fees), cut courses, lay off workers, increase class size, furlough faculty members, and demand that the state increases the university’s funding by $913 million.

The counter narrative, articulated mostly by the unions and the students, is that the university just had a record year of revenue, and the system does not have to raise fees or cut services. Instead, the counter discourse argues that the profit-making units should share their profits, and money earmarked for instruction should actually be used for educational purposes. While unions and students also insist that full state funding should be restored, they recognize that most of the state reductions were made up by federal recovery money ($716 million), fee increases (43 percent -- 9.3 percent in September, 16 percent in January, and another 16 percent next September) and cost saving measures that have already been undertaken.

A close analysis of the university's own audited financial statements (see page 52 of this document) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 shows that in every major category of the budget — research, medical profits, extension programs, and even state appropriations — the university increased its revenue. Thus, even though President Yudof declared a fiscal emergency during the summer of 2009 and was granted emergency powers to impose an austerity plan that included across the board salary reductions, it turns out that the university was never in better fiscal health. In fact, the university’s finances were doing so well that after the state reduced the university’s funding, the university turned around and lent the state $200 million.

When reporters asked Yudof how he could lend the state money at the same time he was cutting salaries, reducing enrollment, and laying off non-tenured faculty, he responded that when the university lends money to the state, it turns a profit, but when the university spends money on teachers’ salaries, the money just disappears. According to this logic, the university should just get out of the education business and concentrate on generating high bond ratings.

"Since when is campaign rhetoric on either side of the ideological divide a legal offense?"

Witch Hunt in the Golden State

"We can’t sustain it."

California Group Pushes for Pension Reforms

"It also linked the decision to declining revenues from tobacco sales — no, really — which cut into funding for anti-cancer screening programs:"

California moves to ration mammograms:

Let the fraud continue

Arnold Schwarzenegger unveils dramatic climate change map which shows flooded San Francisco of the future

If any city deserves it...