prop 13 of 1978? Let me get this straight. . . we have housing bubble (and before a dot-com bubble) and it bursts . . . then the beneficiaries - the government, and charitable foundations receiving money lament the downturn.
Because they've adjusted the budgets as if it would go on forever? Taxpayers are bad for not sustaining the unsustainable? Actually very few houses have their prop 13 exemption, most have been sold and re-assessed, some many times.
Why talk about prop 13? Why doesn't Emmett Carson at SVCF talk about the fact that despite "under-incarceration" ... having on 10% of the inmates(6% after re-alignment) and 12% of the U.S. population we spend 11 billion year on prisons. No it's not 3 strikers either - they're in the single digits. We spent $100,000,000,000/a hundred billion --more-- than Texas for the same number of inmates: 160,000. BTW Texas has 25,000,000 people, we have 37,000,000 -- if you read the news it seems like we should have 12% of the inmates in America, not 10%.
Then there's the pension system - CALPERS & STRS constantly say it's mostly paid for by investment. Is that why the state has to kick in billions to make up shortfalls? These idiots said in 1999 the DOW would be 25,000 in 10 years. They say they'll earn 7.75%, despite no one in private industry (including Warren Buffett) using that figure to calculate pension fund returns. Stanford says at 4.5(a more safe assumption) we're a 1/2 trillion underwater on our pension funds. BTW - public safety pension used to be 1 in 20. Now they're 1 in 3 because DMV employees, dairy, funeral home & billboard inspectors get them, CDC lawyers and auditors figured out if they carry guns they'd get them, security guards get public safety pensions. Then there's the disability pension cheating the legislature looks the other way on (look up Hubert Acevedo whistleblower).
High Speed Rail, as with most rail projects a huge whirlpool for money. The Cal Rail Foundation in SACBEE says our costs are 3x European - and I'll bet U.S. wages are lower. They also said we could have built Bakersfield to L.A. with --less-- than the funds already available. Then you might ask about SMART and the BART tram(1/2 billion for 3 miles???) aren't being built as busways, like the oh-so-successful Orange Line in SOCAL, since busways cost 1/3 what rail systems cost. So cheap you can overpass intersections- that makes more since than 4 way stops.
Oh and one of the latest... CARB's latest fiasco(after MTBE, the 2% "enhanced" vapor recovery nozzles($11,000/per pump)... the 2nd "electric car"(there really is no such thing - since there's a fossil fuel plant on the other end of the charger, most likely; maybe a coal one) mandate. The 1st one failed . . . they didn't figure out until the deadline it would have collapsed our fragile grid. As the 2nd mandate will - unless we have a huge, unfunded by electric car users, expansion of the grid. BTW, any know how much energy you have to burn to recharge a car hundreds of miles away? Riddle: what is an electric car after an EMP event... a 3000 pound paperweight. Oh yeah - did you know we could cut pollution 30%, particulate emissions 90% and fill up for $1.30/gal at the lowest I see in Riverside(.95 in Tulsa). Check cngprices.com- a real stunner. Nope - CARB likes the more expensive, more polluting gas/diesel/(d)ethanol, thank you.
Hey , before I forget... how's Hien Tran? Mary "complete lack of integrity" Nichol's science guru who has a mail-order degree from "Thornhill University". Only in Ca. could an agency chairman keep that under wraps and not get fired. Hien didn't get fired either... it would be embarrassing to say you were causing billions in damage to the economy on his say-so,despite his findings being called ridiculous by real scientists. Like Doc Enstrom of UCLA. Uhh, formerly of UCLA . . . Mary Nichols got him fired. So much for academic freedom. Maybe she'll go to work for PUTIN next. FIDEL wouldn't hire her- he, and the World Bank, the U.N., and Germany think (D)Ethanol is genocide. Germany also wouldn't fuel emergency vehicles with ethanol blends even before boycott they have going there... it damages engines.
Who buys for 2 bucks what could be had for 2 bits? The AOC-OCCM - bringing courthouses we don't need . . . at an unneccessary cost. REHAB costs 1/8(2 bits) vs. 2 bucks for demolishing and building brand new. Thank God for Michael Paul, fired from AOC, for saving us at least $50,000,000 - they cancelled the Alpine & Stanislaus projects. It's a little riduculous to spend $25,000,000 for a new courthouse in Alpine county ... which has 2500 residents. Then there's the 2 billion dollar , still unfinished, computer system. Thanks Ron George!!!
Back to DMV for a moment - it's the 21st century. But not at our democracy- it's pen & paper... just like 1776. Perhaps people should be allowed to use
a computer to fill out the form, instead of a clerk re-typing what your wrote. Or do we wait until 2100 ?
How about that State Architect? You know --- the one that failed to oversee school construction inspectors? The one that fudged the earthquake maps to cut the cost of Field Act reconstruction? It was passed in 1933 and we're still not done, imagine that. Love the sense of humor of those folks that named their lobby ... CASH. Ha Ha Ha. Some well-deserved contempt for the voters??? What's a few crushed limbs and dead kids when big buck savings are possible...
Jerry , Jerry, Jerry. Financial acumen runs in the family. Like when your sister ran for governor and Robert Citron of Orange County was a genius.
You really did a job on the CCPOA contract - those nasty articles in the SACBEE about hiring the unions lawyer to negotiate the latest contract weren't fair. I'm sure some trucking co. president would hire J.P. Hoffa make a deal with the Teamsters. For the right incentive. If he wouldn't get caught. Fired. Jailed. Jerry - are there are lot of hookers with you on the plane when you fly to the prison guards convention?

Should I mention the state buildings lease/sale? Those poor guys that let the cat out of the bag on that. Hope they enjoy retirement. If they got one...

Gosh . . . the number of SACTO screwups is endless , and my time is limited... I could go on. . . ending prop 13 would be like pouring gas on a fire. You folks at the foundations should spend a little time facing the corner with a tall conical hat. Maybe read a newspaper?