Posts Tagged ‘Budget’

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Number of Police Austin Adds In New Budget: Zero

Thursday, July 20th, 2023

Despite a massive deficit in the number of police officers needed to patrol city streets, want to guess how many police Austin’s new budget plans to add?

Would you believe zero?

Austin’s far-left City Council continues to view police as the enemy, continuing it’s defund-the-police bias even after most city’s have abandoned it as madness. Their funding priorities continue to be finding new ways to rake off graft to the hard left.

(Hat tip: Texas Scorecard.)

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Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats | 5 Comments »

Abbott Carries Through With Threat, Vetoes Slew Of Bills

Saturday, June 17th, 2023

If you’ve read BattleSwarm long enough, you know I view Texas Governor Greg Abbott as a cautious, careful politician. He generally pursues conservative policies, but not with the drive and fervor of, say, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The bussing illegal aliens to blue cities ploy was a welcome departure from Abbott’s caution, but here too his sentiment trailed rather than lead conservative consensus.

But it appears that Abbott has finally found the issue he’s willing to play hardball on: Property tax reform.

fter Gov. Greg Abbott indicated Wednesday he could veto a large number of bills if no compromise is reached between the House and Senate on property tax relief, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Abbott is threatening to destroy the work of the legislature.

Abbott made his comments during a bill signing ceremony on Wednesday, with just days left until Sunday, June 18—the last day he can sign bills into law or veto them. In Texas, any legislation not specifically vetoed by the governor becomes law.

There were 4,550 pieces of legislation passed by the Texas House and Senate and sent to the governor as part of the 88th Session of the Legislature. As of Wednesday night, Abbott had signed 873 pieces of legislation into law and vetoed five.

“As we get closer and closer to this Sunday, all of these bills that have yet to be signed face the possibility, if not the probability, that they’re going to be vetoed,” said Abbott.

Abbott has called for all of the $12 billion currently allocated to property tax relief to be used for compression—or buying down local school property taxes. While the House approved this plan on the first day of the current special session, Patrick and the Senate have stood firm in their desire for some of the money to be used to increase the homestead exemption. According to Patrick, this is a way to prioritize relief for homeowners over businesses.

“In a ploy to apparently get his way, Governor Abbott suggests he is threatening to destroy the work of the entire 88th Legislative Session – hundreds of thousands of hours by lawmakers doing the work the people sent us to do,” wrote Patrick on Twitter.

I usually back Patrick over Abbott, but looking at the list of bills he’s vetoed, I can’t say I’m broken up over them. (Some snippage for brevity.)

SB 2613
Author: Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound)
Sponsor: Rep. Lynn Stucky (R-Denton)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Tabor Ranch Municipal Management District; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes; granting a limited power of eminent domain.
Veto Date: June 16
Abbott’s statement: “While Senate Bill No. 2613 is important, it is simply not as important as cutting property taxes. At this time, the legislature must concentrate on delivering
property tax cuts to Texans. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.” [Most of Abbott’s veto statements for subsequent bills are of the “X is important, but not as important as cutting property taxes” formulation, so I’ve snipped those.-LP]

SB 2605
Author: Sen. Pete Flores (R-Pleasanton)
Sponsor: Rep. Brad Buckley (R-Killeen)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Knob Creek Municipal Utility District of Bell County; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2598
Author: Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney)
Sponsor: Rep. Frederick Frazier (R-McKinney)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Honey Creek Improvement District No. 1; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments and fees.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2597
Author: Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe)
Sponsor: Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. (R-Magnolia)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Montgomery County Municipal Utility District No. 237; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1979
Author: Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola)
Sponsor: Rep. Caroline Harris (R-Round Rock)
Caption: Relating to an annual study by the Texas A&M University Texas Real Estate Research Center of the purchase and sale of single-family homes by certain institutional buyers.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2616
Author: Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Brownsville)
Sponsor: Rep. Maria Luisa Flores (D-Austin)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Travis County Municipal Utility District No. 27; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2604
Author: Sen. Boris Miles (D-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 589; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2453
Author: Sen. Jose Menendez (D-San Antonio)
Sponsor: Ana Hernandez (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to certain regulations adopted by governmental entities for the building products, materials, or methods used in the construction of residential or commercial buildings.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2379
Author: Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown)
Sponsor: Caroline Harris (R-Round Rock)
Caption: Relating to aquifer storage and recovery projects that transect a portion of the Edwards Aquifer.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2260
Author: Sen. Cesar Blanco (D-El Paso)
Sponsor: Rep. Toni Rose (D-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to management review of certain investigations conducted by the Department of Family and Protective Services.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2052
Author: Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville)
Sponsor: Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin)
Caption: Relating to permit fees for groundwater wells imposed by the Southeast Texas Groundwater Conservation District.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1712
Author: Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock)
Sponsor: Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo)
Caption: Relating to the purchase, sale, or lease of real property on behalf of a limited partnership or a limited liability company.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1568
Author: Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels)
Sponsor: Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano)
Caption: Relating to the persons authorized or appointed to exercise the power of sale under the terms of a contract lien on real property.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1431
Author: Sen. Chuy Hinojosa (D-McAllen)
Sponsor: Rep. Bobby Guerra (D-Mission)
Caption: Relating to the confidentiality of certain information for a current or former administrative law judge for the State Office of Administrative Hearings.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 526
Author: Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas)
Sponsor: Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield)
Caption: Relating to requiring prior approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to offer a degree or certificate program to certain persons who are incarcerated or subject to involuntary civil commitment.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 485
Author: Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas)
Sponsor: Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress)
Caption: Relating to designating the second Saturday in October as Hospice and Palliative Care Day.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 361
Author: Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin)
Sponsor: Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple)
Caption: Relating to the eligibility of a person employed by a school district as a teacher to serve on the appraisal review board of an appraisal district.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 348
Author: Sen. Drew Springer (R-Muenster)
Sponsor: Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to the prohibition on posting on the Internet information held by an appraisal district regarding certain residential property.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 315
Author: Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood)
Sponsor: Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Richardson)
Caption: Relating to the definition of telephone call for purposes of regulating telephone solicitations.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 267
Author: Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford)
Sponsor: Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock)
Caption: Relating to law enforcement agency accreditation, including a grant program to assist agencies in becoming accredited.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 247
Author: Sen. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Mary Ann Perez (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to specialty license plates issued for honorary consuls.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1080
Author: Sen. Lois Kolhorst (R-Brenham)
Sponsor: Rep. Stan Gerdes (R-Smithville)
Caption: Relating to a mitigation program and fees for the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District.
Veto Date: June 15

SB 2493
Author: Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston)
Sponsor: Rep. John Bryant (D-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to repairs made pursuant to a tenant’s notice of intent to repair and the refund of a tenant’s security deposit.
Veto Date: June 15

SB 1998
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple)
Caption: Relating to the calculation of certain ad valorem tax rates.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill No. 1998 requires data reporting on property taxes, but does nothing to cut property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 2879
Author: Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to venue in certain actions involving a contract for an improvement to real property.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “House Bill No. 2879 would insert the government into private negotiations involving the work of contractors, subcontractors, and materialmen. Laws about venue selection are simply not as important as cutting property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 2138
Author: Rep. Kyle Kacal (R-College Station)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the sale of charitable raffle tickets by certain nonprofit wildlife conservation associations.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “Though House Bill No. 2138 would expand gambling for a worthy cause, our oath obliges us to take a second look at statewide sales of online raffle tickets so that they do not run afoul of Article III, Section 47(d) of the Texas Constitution. Laws authorizing online raffle ticket sales are simply not as important as cutting property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 4158
Author: Rep. Mike Schofield (R-Katy)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the determination and reporting of the number of residence homesteads of elderly or disabled persons that are subject to the limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed on the properties by school districts.
Veto Date: June 14
Abbott’s statement: “House Bill No. 4158 appears to require more paperwork about property taxes, but does nothing to cut property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

SB 467
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano)
Caption: Relating to increasing the criminal penalty for the offense of criminal mischief involving impairment of a motor fuel pump.
Veto Date: June 14
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill No. 467 would impose a harsher sentence for tampering with a gas pump than for damaging the electric grid or cutting a livestock fence. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

SB 2035
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake)
Caption: Relating to the issuance of certain anticipation notes and certificates of obligation.
Veto Date: June 13
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill 2035 has too many loopholes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

(My apologies for your eyes glazing over skimming reading that.)

I’m split between my admiration for Abbott having the balls to veto these bills, and the lazy and generally false statement of saying “X is important, but not as important as property tax relief,” given that most of these bill are not very important at all, save to a few special interests. Some of them, such as SB 2453, should have been vetoed on its merits for the government sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. Without reading the full texts of each and every bill (not my job, because I’m not Governor of Texas), almost all the one with Democratic sponsors seem like they should be vetoed on the merits, and the rest seem pretty special-interest geared. At a glance, the only veto I actually disagree with is SB 467, because gas pump skimmers have recently become a big fraud vector.

But Abbott is right on one big issue: The 88th Texas Legislative Session should have spent the time to pass property tax relief, an issue that directly impacts the pocket books of millions of Texas homeowners. I have not researched the issue enough to determine whether compression or a raising the homestead exemption are more desirable. Abbott and the Texas Public Policy Foundation favor compression, while Patrick favors raising the homestead exemption. Though I can well understand his rejecting House Speaker Dade Phelan’s “let’s pass this and adjourn so you have to accept our bill without negotiation” tactic.

But I’m not upset with Abbott’s vetoes. He should have done a lot more of them, a lot earlier on, to cut down on the growth of government spending and regulation.

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Posted in Budget, Communism, Regulation | 6 Comments »

Kicking The Debt Can Down The Road To 2024

Thursday, June 1st, 2023

Another year, another punt in dealing with America’s ever-mounting debt problems.

After intense negotiations between U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) and President Joe Biden, an agreement was struck which passed the House with both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

The so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act” (FRA) passed the House Wednesday in a 314 to 117 vote, with 71 Republicans joining 46 Democrats in the minority voting against the measure.

The deal will suspend the nation’s debt ceiling until after the 2024 presidential elections, leaving it up to the next White House and Congress to navigate a deal that addresses the ever-expanding national debt.

With the debt nearing $32 trillion, the congressional budget analysis estimates it will grow by around $4 trillion during the period the FRA is in place, or until early 2025.

Congressman August Pfluger (R-TX-11) was one of the members who voted in favor of the bill but acknowledged in a phone interview that the bill was far from perfect and isn’t to be considered a home run by fiscal conservatives.

Pfluger explained there were some major wins in the negotiations that caused him to vote yes.

“The number one thing we took away from holding the Energy Committee meetings in Midland was calls from the oil and gas industry to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and I’m proud to say we got the most significant reforms to NEPA in 50 years as part of this deal, and Biden isn’t happy about it,” he said.

Pfluger explained how under NEPA laws, oil and gas permitting and regulations can slow industry projects down, taking almost 10 years in some cases to get federal permitting. He also said the deal would greenlight important pipeline projects.

In addition, Plfuger said he supported the welfare reforms, requiring 80 hours per month of work or job training from The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) recipients, and clawing back of IRS funding, and while the proposal didn’t cut as much spending as he would like to see, it was still a small step in the right direction.

Here is where the usual blogging protocol would be to put in my analysis of the good and bad points of the deal. Nah, it stinks, because it doesn’t treat the looming national debt crisis seriously. We need a republican House, a Republican Senate, and a president who is willing to ride herd and veto non-balanced budgets to start fixing the problem, and we haven’t had that combination in my lifetime. Gerald R. Ford was the last Republican President who really fought to balance the budget, and republican congressional leadership hasn’t done so since the days of New Gingrich, Phil Gramm and Dick Armey.

Democrats will always vote for higher deficits because their entire business model is predicated on raking off the graft and doing the bidding of elites who prosper from asset inflation. Republicans as a whole always cave to them because no one holds them in line and because every debt limit hike is always an emergency rushed into law at the 11th hour when nobody is paying attention and they can whine “But we had to!”

Real austerity is limiting government outlays to receipts, and we haven’t had that since Gingrich and company held the line and the Dotcom boom brought in then record revenue in the late 1990s. Undoing Gramm-Rudmam-Lotta was disasterous.

I’d like to think that DeSantis could hold the line on deficit spending if he gets in. Sadly, we know from experience that Trump (whatever his other strengths) won’t…

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Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans | 6 Comments »

Followup: Homeless Industrial Complexer Tried To Channel Money To Own Company While On City Payroll

Saturday, May 20th, 2023

Just before news broke that the Austin City Council was cancelling a homeless camp cleanup contract over the sketchy nature of one contractor, the Austin Texas Times published another expose on another recipient for that contract.

Turns out at least one city employee involved in the contract was all but handing the money to himself.

All the evidence indicates this is was almost certainly an inside job.

It certainly appears that at least one City of Austin employee colluded or communicated with friends and business associates to secure lucrative seven figure contracts.

Despite being grossly unqualified and totally inexperienced for the job.

It also seems like ICCS Academy is lying about a bunch of stuff on their bid submission.

Snip.

Believe it or not, the ICCS Academy bidding process raises even more red flags than P Squared Services.

There are two City of Austin employees listed as “authorized contacts” for Item 23.

  • Sandra Wirtanen
  • John Wesley Smith

    • This screenshot shows John Wesley Smith is the “Small Minority Business Resources” contact for this proposal.

    Guess where John Wesley Smith used to work as the ‘Compliance Director’ before he started working for Austin city government?

    ICCS Academy!

    Can you imagine a bigger conflict of interest?

    Maybe that’s why ICCS Academy yanked their website yesterday (link).

    However, this snippet on DuckDuckGo still appears when you search for ‘John Wesley Smith ICCS Academy’

    John Wesley Smith was the Compliance Director for ICCS Academy.

    His bio states he also works as a “Small Business Counselor with the City of Austin”.

    Snip.

    QUESTION: Shouldn’t John Wesley Smith have immediately recused himself from the bidding and contract negotiation process for Item 23, due to his massive conflict of interest as the current / former Compliance Director for ICCS Academy?

    Massive Conflict of Interest

    Gee, I wonder how the other eight companies who submitted bid proposals for Item 23 feel about the former Compliance director of ICCS Academy overseeing the bidding process, and awarding a $7 million contract to his former colleagues?

    John Wesley Smith was definitely the Compliance Director for ICCS Academy at one point in time.

    Whether that was two weeks, two months or two years ago – it doesn’t matter.

    John Wesley Smith should have removed himself from this project due to the awful optics and huge conflict of interest.

    John Wesley Smith’s LinkedIn profile shows his current role with Austin city government is “Business Development Coordinator II”.

    John Wesley Smith says he’s in charge of “negotiating contractual agreements for the City of Austin” and is “responsible for various minority/women procurements.”

    Huh.

    For the record, ICCS Academy is currently a registered vendor with the city of Austin.

    However, all of their ‘certified commodities’ are in education, training and consulting.

    So a training vendor gets picked to do homeless site cleanup despite no experience in the field because a (former?) employee works for the city and just happens to be able to throw business their way.

    How convenient.

    If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that the entire reimagining police lunacy was all about social justice warriors saying time and time again “take money from the police and give it to us.” There’s an entire industry of social justice grifters (both in homelessness and every other social justice cause) whose entire existence is dedicated to making life for average citizens worse while sucking as much money as possible from taxpayers. You can bet that this is far from the first time such self-dealing has occurred, and I bet forensic audits of both city contracts and the “nonprofit” entities that receive them would reveal numerous example of quid pro quo kickbacks.

    Again, kudos to Teddy Brosevelt (whoever he may be) for peeling back the lid of Austin’s social justice warrior corruption problem.

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For May 19, 2023

    Friday, May 19th, 2023

    The Russian Collusion Hoax is now officially bunk, Budweiser’s self-inflicted freefall continues, blue city commercial real estate bites the moose, and a whole lot of shocked face to go around. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • John Durham finally delivers his report sinking the Russian collusion hoax.

    The Department of Justice and the FBI did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and began their Crossfire Hurricane probe of Trump’s campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” according to a report released on Monday by special prosecutor John Durham.

    Durham scolded federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence officials for failing to “uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law” as part of their investigation.

    He wrote that at least one FBI agent criminally fabricated language in an email that was used to obtain a FISA surveillance order. And he accused FBI leaders of displaying a “serious lack of analytical rigor” and relying significantly on “investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents,” referring to staffers and allies of Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, whose campaign funded the Steele dossier through its law firm Perkins Coie.

    Compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the dossier is an unverified collection of opposition research accusing then-candidate Trump and his campaign aides of collaborating with Kremlin officials. The FBI used the dossier to secure a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page, though its central claims were subsequently disproven by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

    The report notes that the FBI was quick to investigate Trump, while it proceeded cautiously with allegations against Clinton.

    The 316-page report sent to Congress was nearly four years in the making. It concluded that neither federal law enforcement nor intelligence officials “appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” which the FBI “swiftly opened.”

    The report accuses federal officials of acting “without appropriate objectivity or restraint.” Peter Strzok, then the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, opened the investigation “immediately” at the direction of Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director. “Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump,” the report states.

    It states that former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith “committed a criminal offense by fabricating language in an email that was material to the FBI obtaining a FISA surveillance order.”

    Durham wrote that FBI officials continued to seek FISA surveillance while acknowledging that “they did not genuinely believe there was probable cause to believe that the target was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of foreign power, or knowingly helping another person in such activities. And certain personnel disregarded significant exculpatory information that should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination.”

    “Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.

    Read the full Durham Report here.

    So how many hacks are going to give back their Pulitzer Prizes?

  • Speaking of which:

  • “Media Admits They Lied About That Russia Collusion Thing But Are Totally Telling The Truth About Everything Else.”
    

  • “Gov. Newsom Announces California Budget Deficit Bigger than Projected.” Legal Insurrection has already used the “unexpectedly” here, so I’ll just note that Newsom is the far lefty a whole lot of Democratic Party power players want to substitute for Biden at the top of the ticket in 2024.
  • “Soros-Backed Group Pushes Chicago Mayor To Slash Funding for ‘Racist’ Police Force.” Of course they do. Chicago Democrats are going to get what they voted for, gooder and harder. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “NIH Renews Funds for ‘Bat Coronavirus’ Research despite Energy Department, FBI’s Lab-Leak Conclusion.” That’s like catching Mrs. O’Leary’s cow after she’s burned down Chicago, strapping lit fireworks to her body and letting her loose in the dynamite factory.
  • “The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Top 50 Organizations To Know.”
  • “Man Who Assaulted Congressional Staffers Had Previously Been Let off by Soros-Funded Prosecutor.” There’s not enough shocked face in the world…
  • Seattle-area official defends nominating sex offender to committee that includes one of his victims. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “New York, San Francisco Office Buildings Are Absolute Ghost Towns.”

    “Things are so bad, in fact, that 26 Empire State Buildings could fit into New York City’s empty office space, as occupancy in the city is hovering around 50% of prepandemic levels.”

    “In San Francisco, the downtown area is experiencing its worst office vacancy crisis on record – with 31% of space available for lease or sublease, the SF Chronicle reports.”

  • “DeSantis Defunds ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Bureaucracies in Florida Public Universities.” Trump did a lot of things right as President, but he never fought social justice warrior madness with the same ferocity that DeSantis has in Florida.
  • Speaking of DeSantis, he’s expected to launch a 2024 Presidential campaign next week.
  • Also 2024 race news: Biden may not even be on the primary ballot in New Hampshire. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Bud Light finds out there’s no bottom to their tranny pander pit. “Sales volumes of Bud Light fell by 23.6 percent in the week ended on May 6, according to retail scanner numbers cited by Beer Business Daily that are based on Nielsen IQ data. That’s a drop from the 23.3 percent slide Bud Light suffered in the final week of April.”
  • Finnish nuclear plant coming online drops spot energy prices by 75%.
  • Russia’s energy revenue falls by 47%.
  • Child mutilation ban passes Texas House.
  • “24 Republican governors pledge to assist Texas in securing its border.

    Republican governors released a joint statement on Tuesday pledging to assist Texas in securing its border with Mexico.

    In response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for assistance, twenty-four Republican governors committed to helping secure the 1,254-mile-border and commended the Texas Republican for the recent actions he was forced to take due to the failures of the Biden administration’s open-border policies, according to the Washington Examiner.

    “The federal government’s response handling the expiration of Title 42 has represented a complete failure of the Biden Administration,” the joint statement reads. “While the federal government has abdicated its duties, Republican governors stand ready to protect the U.S.-Mexico border and keep families safe.”

    “All states have suffered from the effects of deadly illegal drugs coming across the border, and every state is a border state due to the devastating influx of drugs in our communities. Republican governors are leading the way to address the border crisis by increasing fentanyl sentencing and increasing support for law enforcement interdiction of drugs, among other measures,” they continued.

    “Texas Governor Greg Abbott has exemplified leadership at a critical time, leading the way with Operation Lone Star, and deploying the Texas Tactical Border Force to prevent illegal crossings and keep the border secure. We support the efforts to secure the border led by Governor Abbott.”

    On Tuesday afternoon, Abbott sent an urgent request to all of the nation’s governors asking them to band together to defeat the invasion at the US/Mexico border, something he said impacts every community in the United States.

    “The flood of illegal border activity invited by the Biden Administration flows directly across the southern border into Texas communities, but this crisis does not stop in our state. Emboldened Mexican drug cartels and other transnational criminal enterprises profit off this chaos, smuggling people and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into communities nationwide,” Abbott wrote.

    “In the federal government’s absence, we, as Governors, must band together to combat President Biden’s ongoing border crisis and ensure the safety and security that all Americans deserve,” he requested.

    While no Democratic governors responded to the letter, twenty-four Republicans pledged to help from states which include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

  • “Yes, Migrants Believe Biden Has Rolled Out A Big Welcome Mat.”

    Jorge Mijares left Venezuela months ago — last November, he says. He’s been in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, for four weeks. But he planned to cross over Thursday night, as Title 42 immigration restrictions ended.

    “I have the app,” said Mijares, 54. “I’m just waiting for it to tell me when to go.”

    He’s not concerned about the Biden administration’s warnings against migration. After all, he has many friends who have made it across — safely.

    There’s an app that tells you how to break U.S. immigration laws. Of course there is. Silly of me to be even slightly surprised. “The street finds its own uses for things” as the now-elderly cyberpunks used to say…

  • Twisted Sisiter’s Dee Snider is not down with your tranny madness. You submitted this with a better “we’re not going to take it” pun.
  • Speaking of tranny madness: Cross-dressing serial thief Samuel Brinton arrested as a fugitive from justice.
  • “Toronto ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Pay-When-You-Can Cafe Shuts Down After Just One Year.”

  • Chutzpah: Taking a paycheck for not working for 15 years. Boss Level Chutzpah: Suing for a raise for not working.
  • Meet Scary Barbie, the star-shredding black hole.
  • “Poll: Most Democrats In Favor Of Welcoming Immigrants Into Someone Else’s Neighborhood.”
  • “Dad Punishes Misbehaving Son By Giving Him Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for April 14, 2023

    Friday, April 14th, 2023

    If you’re stressing over your taxes, you might be slightly relieved to know that they’re not due until April 18. Thus week: More Blue City violence and decline, lots of Social Justice Warrior backlash, Facebook shows snowflakes the door, and Budweiser commits brand suicide.
    

  • “Ex-ABC Senior Producer Who Rolling Stone Covered For Indicted On Child Porn Charges. Former ABC senior producer James Gordon Meek has been indicted on three counts of child pornography nearly one year after the FBI raided his Arlington, Virginia home.”
    

  • “A Silicon Valley Vs. Homeless Industrial-Complex Power-Struggle Emerges In San Francisco.”

    Something about the apparently random street murder of Silicon Valley tech executive Bob Lee seems to have overturned a crawly rock in San Francisco’s political scene, suggesting a brewing power struggle on the horizon.

    On the one hand, we have a very vocally angry Silicon Valley tech community speaking out about the out-of-control crime situation in the city, with the valued and talented Lee’s untimely death from some night creature who crawled out from some sewer or encampment and stabbed him to death, quite possibly in a drug-addled haze. That’s expected if you live in a place full of bums and criminals, but Lee didn’t live in a place full of bums and criminals. He had actually fled the city for Florida based on its engulfing crime and come back only for a brief business trip.

    On the other hand, we have a soggy, entrenched political establishment seeking to assure that there’s really no crime problem at all. This is evident enough in the “crime is down” coverage seen in the political establishment’s house organ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and in the surreal statements of the city hall power establishment, which is rooted in special interests, particularly the most powerful one, the homeless industrial complex. I wrote about that here. San Francisco currently spends about as much on homeless “services” as it does on police, and by some studies such as the one cited below, actually more.

    Not surprisingly, as per Thomas Sowell’s observation, you can have all the poverty you want to pay for, and San Francisco pays a lot.

    The Hoover Institution’s Lee Ohanian has noted:

    Spending $1.1 billion on homelessness is just the latest installment in San Francisco’s constant failure to sensibly and humanely deal with an issue that it chronically misdiagnoses and mismanages about as much as is humanly possible. Since fiscal year 2016–17, San Francisco has spent over $2.8 billion on homelessness, and the city’s politicians remain seemingly baffled, year after year, as the number of homeless in the city skyrocket, as opioid overdoses kill more than COVID-19, and as the city has become nearly the most dangerous in the country. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-most-crime-rid….

    Since 2016, the number of homeless in San Francisco has increased from 12,249 to 19,086, which comes out to about $57,000 in spending per homeless person per year. With a total population of about 860,000, roughly 2.2 percent of San Francisco residents are homeless, which is over 12 times the national average. There is little doubt that as San Francisco spends more, homelessness and its impact on the city worsens.

    Do the homeless get that $57,000 being spent on them? Of course not. The princelings of the NGO establishments got that money — for themselves. That’s what’s made them politically powerful, enough to call the shots at city hall.

    Democrats and Social Justice Warriors view homelessness as a huge profit center, and seek to increase the ranks of the homeless at every opportunity.

  • Speaking of Bob Lee’s murder, the former San Francisco fire commissioner was attacked with crowbar the day after Lee was stabbed to death.
  • Also, an arrest was made in the Lee case and it was a fellow tech guy who knew him. “A tech executive named Nima Momeni was arrested by San Francisco police Thursday morning in the April 4 killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee…Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.” So not a random gibbering drug-addicted transient.
  • Speaking of San Francisco street crime, a Whole Food closes one year after opening due to violence and theft.
  • Speaking of store closings in blue cities, Walmart is closing half their Chicago stores.
  • Is it it riot and murder season in Baltimore already? Ha! Trick question! It’s always riot and murder season in Baltimore.

  • “Embattled Soros-Backed St. Louis Prosecutor Sanctioned By Judge Amid New Complaints.”

    A St. Louis judge sanctioned St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office last week for allegedly withholding evidence in a double-murder case, while allowing the suspect out on bond, amid rising criticism about left-wing prosecutors allowing crime to flourish in major U.S. cities.

    Alex Heflin, 23, was held without bond since January after he was initially charged with two counts of second-degree murder and armed criminal action, local media reported. But those charges were recently reduced to involuntary and voluntary manslaughter before he was released, while his April 17 trial has been postponed until June 12.

    Judge Theresa Counts Burke ruled in favor of Heflin’s lawyers after they filed a motion accusing a prosecutor under Gardner of violating discovery rules. They alleged that her office did not turn over evidence, including a 911 call recording and DNA evidence.

    “The court finds that there have been repeated delays by the state in obtaining discovery and providing it to the defense,” Burke wrote, according to local reports.

    “There has been a lack of diligence on the part of the state in following up and providing discovery to the defendant in a timely fashion. As a result of the state’s actions and lack of diligence, the court grants defendant’s second motion for sanctions.”

    Under Burke’s order, Heflin will have to remain on GPS monitoring. She also ordered the circuit attorney’s office to hand over their list of witnesses within 24 hours, provide DNA test results within 24 hours, or ask a crime lab for the DNA results.

  • Remember when Reagan was criticized for taking the deficit above $100 billion? Now it’s over a trillion. Every six months. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 2024 update: Tim Scott getting in.
  • Mike Pompeo getting out.
  • Fort Worth ISD to make DEI die.
  • “Molotov balloons are a ball filled with sulfuric acid, but white strips are a type of paper treated with potassium chlorate and a sugar mix. When the balloon breaks, the acid reacts with the potassium chlorate and sugar, which causes ignition.”
  • Another girlboss indicted: “Penn grad Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, charged with fraud over $175M JPMorgan deal.” Seems the heart of the indictment is fake users.

    Prosecutors and the SEC allege that Javice orchestrated a scheme to deceive JPMorgan into believing that Frank had access to valuable data on 4.25 million students who used the company’s service when in reality the number was less than 300,000.

    Prosecutors said when JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) sought to verify the number of Frank users and the amount of data collected about them, Javice fabricated a data set. She is alleged to have an unnamed co-conspirator who first asked Frank’s director of engineering to create an artificially generated data set. Prosecutors said the director of engineering declined the request after expressing concerns about its legality.

    Javice, according to prosecutors, then approached an outside data scientist and hired him to create the synthetic data set — which was then provided to an agreed-upon third-party vendor in an effort to confirm to JPMorgan that the data set had over 4.25 million rows.

    Based on that alleged fraudulent data, prosecutors said JPMorgan agreed to buy Frank for $175 million. As part of the deal, the nation’s largest bank hired Javice and other Frank employees. Prosecutors said Javice received over $21 million for selling her equity stake in Frank and, per the terms of the deal, was to be paid another $20 million as a retention bonus.

    Prosecutors said as the fabricated data set was being created, Javice and her co-conspirator sought to purchase real data for over 4.25 million college students to cover up their misrepresentations.

    Treading the fine line between “fake it until you make it” and “interstate wire fraud.”

  • Bud light tranny pander wrecks brand. “I’ve never seen such little sales [as] in this past few days.”
  • In fact, they’ve lost six billion dollars in market cap.
  • “People With Taste Buds Continue Decades-Long Boycott Of Bud Light.”
  • The history of Barrett firearms. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Facebook to lay off 10,000 employees, including some of the people bragging that they had no work to do.
  • We’re having a party, a bankruptcy party. (Maybe.)
  • Tragic non-steak roasting befalls 18,000 cows.
  • Possible sequel to Cocaine Bear hits unexpected obstacle. Or vice-versa.
  • “BLM Leaders Call For Renewed Protests This Summer After Finding A Fantastic Beach House For Sale On Zillow.”
  • “Pentagon Leaker Kicking Himself For Not Just Leaving Classified Documents Strewn Around His Garage.”
  • “Disaster On Mandalorian Set As Lizzo Eats Baby Yoda.”

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 5 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for February 17, 2023

    Friday, February 17th, 2023

    Bit of a mini-LinkSwarm this time around, as this was a week that I almost caught up on stuff delayed by the ice storm.
    
    

  • Bidenomics: “Core CPI Rises 32nd Straight Month, Headline Inflation Hotter Than Expected.”
  • “Biden’s job growth is mostly immigrants working for low wages.” Also this: “The Department of Homeland Security has been issuing an unknown number of two-year work permits to illegal immigrants, which will keep them in the workforce suppressing wages and fanning the flames of discontent amongst Americans unable to find jobs until the next presidential election.” What the hell?
  • Auto repos hit new records.
  • California’s income tax revenues decline by 50%. Tax it, and they will leave. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media.”

    The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.

    The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.

    “Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”

    GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

    The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

    GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.

  • Huge earthquake rocks Syria and Turkey. That was less than a week ago and already it’s pretty much out of the news…
  • Another huge story that the news media has done it’s best to ignore: a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The blew it up to prevent a BLEVE and ended up releasing Phosgene gas. That’s carrying your World War I reenactment too far.
  • 90-year California Democratic Senator old Dianne Feinstein to retire after 2024. But…
  • A few hour later she was evidently unaware she had retired. Increasingly, “crazy” or “senile” seem to be the two most common flavors of the Democratic Party…
  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott announces legislative priorities for the current session.
    1. Cutting Property Taxes
    2. End COVID Restrictions
    3. Education Freedom (School Choice)
    4. School Safety
    5. Ending Revolving-door Bail
    6. Doing More to Secure the Border
    7. Addressing the Fentanyl Crisis

    We’ll see if he follows through.

  • Followup: Transient encampment moved away from Headpsace Salon so they can go destroy someone else’s quality of life instead. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Dumbass reaches for off-duty cop’s gun, with the expected results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Inside China’s livestreamer girl factories.
  • Updated contact information for the Austin City Council.
  • Not a Babylon Bee headline: “Catalytic converter stolen from Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in Las Vegas.”
  • I chuckled.
  • Biden Taken To Coroner For Annual Physical.

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    California Hates Your Freedom So Much They Want To Tax You For Leaving

    Sunday, January 29th, 2023

    One-Party Democratic California is so desperate for cash they want to tax people for leaving.

    Desperate to stem the stampede of cash cows — affluent residents — out of their state, they are trying to pass an exit tax for households with assets of $50 million or more. Current residents would have to keep paying for years after they have decamped to less hostile states.

    Heaven forbid that these legislators should instead come to terms with the reasons so many productive residents flee or what they could do to make their state a more attractive destination for people and businesses. They aren’t much concerned with that, merely with stopping the flight of all that revenue. If they cared about the livelihoods of the people leaving, they probably would have governed in a way that didn’t prompt people to head for the exits.

    This is probably unconstitutional nine ways to Sunday. Wealth tax, Ex-Post Facto law, taxation without representation, etc. It’s also likely to be counterproductive, as rich people are not only likely to leave the state preemptively to avoid being subject to it, but are exactly the people that can hire top-notch lawyers to get it overturned.

    Louis Rossmann, who recently fled New York City to Austin, has additional thoughts:

  • “They are showing and demonstrating here they have no confidence in their ability to govern better, or in their ability to actually give the customers of that state what they want, because they’re telling you ‘We’re not going to make things better. Rather, if you leave we are going to figure out a way to fine you.'”
  • “It demonstrates a sick ideology that’s both just authoritarian and disgusting in nature.”
  • “It’s not like [the tax rates in California and New York] just spiked up insanely over the past one or two years, they’ve been higher than the tax rate in Texas and Florida for as long as I’ve been alive, by a fairly large margin. This is not news. It’s something else in addition to that, and they don’t even appear to be interested in trying to figure out what that is.”
  • “Florida and Texas…have not had income tax for a very long time.”
  • “Maybe it would make sense to actually ask people what changed over the past two or three or five years that caused you to decide that you want to move your business and get the fuck out.”
  • “I could tell you from experience that losing half of your employees, putting all your stuff in a truck, carting it across the country. and spending months putting it all back together is insanely stressful, and not something that I’m going to do so I could save six or eight percent of my income tax.”
  • “Why are you then going to bake more taxes, and then have a fine for leaving that is then going to discourage anybody else that has the same concern from ever coming to your state thereby ensuring that the population of people that are productive and create value diminishes.”
  • “The idea of being taxed based on what you are worth at a particular time without actually cashing it out is insane to me.”
  • Long, correct discussion of why long-term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate snipped. (I doubt many of my readers don’t already understand, or disagree.) Ditto the discussion of how investment creates jobs.
  • “People deciding to defer their gratification, to decide ‘I will wait for the large payoff 10 to 20 years from now rather than make a decision that results in me getting more money right now,’ and I think that that it should be discussed more often because if it’s not, then we are going to end up with stuff like this.”
  • He discusses the slippery slope argument: The bill already states the tax will start at billionaires, but then in two years hit people with a net worth of $50 million or more. “Once it gets low enough like once this makes its way off to 10 million or a million, because again this is going to slip.”
  • And just wait until it hits the net worth not only of individuals, but of businesses.

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Regulation, video | 3 Comments »

    Texas To Run Another Big-Ass Budget Surplus

    Thursday, January 12th, 2023

    One huge advantage Texas has over one-party Democrat-rule states is the salutary habit of running budget surpluses year after year after year. (Or, to be technically correct (“the best kind of correct!”), biennium after biennium after biennium.)

    Now Comptroller Glenn Hegar has officially forecast that the Texas budget for 2024-2025 (the one the legislature will pass in the just-started legislative session) will be a $32.7 Billion surplus.

    The historic Texas budget surplus estimate has grown even larger as Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced a $5 billion increase in an updated Biennial Revenue Estimate (BRE) on Monday.

    The Texas Legislature convenes for the first day of its 88th Regular Session on Tuesday and now appears to have at its disposal $32.7 billion — a sum that has more than its fair share of stipulations and restrictions. Hegar’s July 2021 projection pegged the number at $27 billion.

    “Even with constitutional spending limits and an inflation-influenced new normal, the enormous amount of projected revenue gives the state a remarkable, or a truly ‘once-in-a-lifetime,’ opportunity for historical actions this legislative session,” Hegar said, presenting the BRE Monday.

    Tempering reactions, he added, “Don’t count on me announcing another big revenue jump two years from now.”

    “The revenue increases that we’ve seen have been in many ways unprecedented and we cannot reasonably expect a repeat. We are unlikely to have an opportunity like this again.”

    Overall, the comptroller estimates $188 billion available in general-purpose spending for the 2024-2025 budget, a 26 percent increase from the current biennium. The state will also receive an estimated $176 billion in federal dollars and other revenues that are non-discretionary, earmarked already with specific purposes.

    Over half of the general revenue-related funds come from sales taxes and 13.2 percent from oil and gas severance taxes. Due to the high oil and gas prices over the last year, severance tax collections rose 116 percent in 2022; the average annual increase from 1996 to 2021 was just 7.5 percent.

    Without new appropriations, Hegar estimates the Economic Stabilization Fund to reach a balance of $27.1 billion, slightly constrained by a constitutional limit.

    Texas has had a Republican trifecta (House, Senate and Governor’s mansion) for two decades, and in that time it has followed the budget maxim of former governor Rick Perry: “Don’t spend all the money!” Conservative governance, free market policies, low taxes and fiscal prudence have all combined to keep the economy growing even in difficult times, a record few Democratic-dominated states even remotely approach.

    The Texas Public Policy Foundation has more thoughts on how Texas government can reduce the Texas tax burden even further.

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    Posted in Budget, Economics, Republicans, Texas | 15 Comments »

    Texas Vs. California Budgets: 2022 Edition

    Saturday, November 26th, 2022

    State budgets for Texas and California are in the news, and once again the two largest states in the union are headed in opposite directions:

  • In Texas, lawmakers are wrangling about what to do with a $27 billion surplus.

    The Texas Legislature is in for a fight over how to spend its expected pot of money from inflation-driven record consumption tax collections.

    Trying to direct the Legislature and the Texas House specifically often resembles herding cats — 150 members with 150 different ideas on how the $27 billion projected surplus should be appropriated.

    Comptroller Hegar indicated this week that the total might grow even more by the New Year. He will provide an updated certified revenue estimate in January.

    Whether it grows or not, the sum will be a large pot with which the Legislature can do a lot.

    The foremost suggestion is to buy down property taxes through ramped-up compression of local ad valorem tax rates.

    Gov. Greg Abbott has called for spending “at least half” on “the largest property tax cut ever in the history of Texas.” Lt. Governor Dan Patrick first called for using $4 billion to cut taxes and then upped that to possibly more than half of the total.

    The Legislature already has $3 billion earmarked for a buydown next session from holdover American Rescue Plan Act funds.

  • Meanwhile, California is suffering from a $25 billion deficit.

    $25 billion.

    That’s the estimated deficit Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers will confront when crafting a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor announced Wednesday.

    The projection marks a stunning reversal from back-to-back years of unprecedented prosperity: The budget for California’s current fiscal year clocked in at a whopping $308 billion, fueled by a record $97 billion surplus that was by itself enough to treat every state resident to a $7,500 vacation. The year before, Newsom and lawmakers approved what was at the time a record-busting $263 billion budget that included a $76 billion surplus.

    Snip.

    The Legislative Analyst’s fiscal outlook doesn’t take into account soaring inflation rates or the increasingly likely possibility of a recession. Due to inflation, “the actual costs to maintain the state’s service level are higher than what our outlook reflects,” the analyst’s office wrote. The estimated $25 billion deficit thus “understates the actual budget problem in inflation-adjusted terms.” And, if a recession were to hit, it would result “in much more significant revenue declines,” meaning California could bring in $30 to $50 billion less than expected in the budget window.

    I don’t think there’s any “if” about a recession anymore.

    • For a while California’s tech and entertainment industry strengths were outrunning its massive blue state economic mismanagement and green energy delusions. That’s no longer the case.

    The problem with the blue state model is that they either run out of other people’s money, or people take it with them when they move before the state can take it away. Still others leave to avoid the outrageous cost of living. No wonder U-Haul ran out of trucks to leave the state.

    Budgets are hard to balance even in good times, given competing priorities and political factions. It becomes much harder in a recession. And it becomes nearly impossible when you try to fund not only the regular Democratic Party graft and fraud, but social justice madness and green energy delusions.

    Which is why so many Californians are getting out while the getting is good…

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans, Texas, Welfare State | 12 Comments »

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