California Progress Report

Both Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Bass have stated that they would like to form a bipartisan commission to find ways to improve California’s tax system. They seek to modernize our tax system, make the state more economically competitive, and have a system that produces stable revenues.

These are great goals. California’s tax system was designed decades ago in a manufacturing era when borders were important and tangible goods ruled. Our tax system was not designed for the current information age with its mobile capital, worldwide-based workforce,… more

After a fiercely fought primary election, no winner emerged in last week's election in the LA County Supervisor race between City Councilmember Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. With barely one-sixth of all voters participating, millions of dollars spent, and a race that turned increasingly negative, neither Ridley-Thomas nor Parks could muster a majority (50 percent plus one) in the nine-candidate field. As a result, both candidates must now duke it out for another five months until the November… more

Voting just three days before the 30th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13, the landmark Jarvis-Gann initiative that cut property taxes and triggered a tax revolt across the country, voters in the primary election approved dozens of tax increases in local communities around the state.

By my count from semi-official election results available the day after the election, they passed 26 of 32 proposals to issue school and community college bonds; each of these measures, which raise local property taxes… more

I attended a program earlier today, "Exporting California: California's Influence in 2008 and Beyond", hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California, the James Irvine Foundation and the New America Foundation. The main fare centered around our state's influence on the 2008 Presidential election and also on "Making Policy in the 'Nation-State' of California. There will be some articles on that tomorrow.

But what caught my attention were some comments by Michael Villines, the Republican leader in the Assembly… more

On a parallel track from the health debate raging in the legislature, the Little Hoover Commission continued its examination of state’s health landscape on Thursday, calling academics and advocates to talk about health proposals on the table. Since last year, the Little Hoover Commission, which is charged with examining ways to make state government more efficient, began looking at different aspects of the health care system late last year... The three-hour conversation on Thursday was slightly different than… more