Posts Tagged ‘Paul Tanaka’

Texas vs. California Update for June 28, 2016

Tuesday, June 28th, 2016

Welcome to another Texas vs. California update!

  • California’s skyrocketing housing costs, taxes prompt exodus of residents.” “During the 12 months ending June 30, the number of people leaving California for another state exceeded by 61,100 the number who moved here from elsewhere in the U.S.” Plus this: “The majority of the people we are seeing are moving to states that don’t have state income taxes.” And this “My husband’s salary would be in the six figures, but six figures is not enough to cover the rent, day care (and) food prices.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • The middle class can no longer afford to live in the Bay Area.
  • “Orange County’s public city employees earned $144,817 on average last year.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • In a completely unrelated story, lavish pension hikes have resulted in exploding levels of Orange County debt. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • “City employees working full-time in Long Beach earned an average of $128,731 in total compensation last year.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • “A survey of 45 cities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties shows the average full-time city worker received $127,730 in pay and benefits last year.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • On paper, Nevada County, California, is technically insolvent (which is the best kind of insolvent.) (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • As good as Texas is doing compared to California’s profligacy, the people at the Texas Public Policy Foundation think the budget is still growing way too fast.
  • “Jacobs Engineering Group, one of the world’s largest engineering companies, is preparing to move employees from its Pasadena [CA] headquarters to Dallas, becoming the latest major corporation to relocate significant operations from California to Texas.”
  • “A California-based orthopedic goods manufacturer and distributor has decided to move its Ohio-based distribution hub to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which will give the company a place to significantly expand operations and possibly relocate its West Coast headquarters. The company, Santa Paula, California-based Hely & Weber, has signed a lease totaling nearly 40,000 square feet of space at 755 Regent Blvd. in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.”
  • Still more companies leaving California. Plus why the “Bernie Sanders effect” will result in a veto-proof majority for Democrats in the California legislature. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Bankrupt San Bernardino, union fight over settlement payments.” Clip and save this headline, as you’ll be able to use it again and again over the coming years…
  • Marin County pension reformer launches GoFundMe campaign to sue the county over pension increases. Though his $198,000 request strikes me as excessively optimistic…
  • Texas scores three of the top five cities (Houston, Austin, San Antonio) for U-Haul destinations. (Hat tip: Ted Cruz on Facebook.)
  • California Democrats and Social Justice Warriors conspire to drive Christian colleges out of the state. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Once again, California leads the nation…in car thefts.
  • Which lead to this: “More than 71 percent of all recovered stolen cars in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by illegal aliens or by ‘transport coyotes,’ those who bring in illegals across the Mexican border.”
  • “Paul Tanaka, once one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in Los Angeles County, was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison for interfering with an FBI investigation into jail abuses by sheriff’s deputies.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Oakland police chief resigns because at least 14 Oakland police officers (and 10 other law enforcement officers had sex with the same underage girl. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • And the guy Oakland found to replace him? He lasted…five days.
  • Bay Area law enforcement agencies have lost 944 guns since 2010. Maybe that’s the “gun control” Democrats should be focusing on… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Californians face rolling blackouts this summer…some of which could last as much as 14 days.
  • Shuttered California hospital files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
  • You could count this Silicon Valley robot pizza technology startup as a win for California, but the subtext here as that many human California pizza workers will never work a day under that new $15 minimum wage…
  • Texas vs. California Update for April 18, 2016

    Monday, April 18th, 2016

    Time for another Texas vs. California roundup, with the top news being California’s hastening their economic demise with a suicidal minimum wage hike:

  • Jerry Brown admits the minimum wage hike doesn’t make economic sense, then signs it anyway. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Who is really behind the minimum wage hike? The SEIU:

    California’s drive to hike the minimum wage has little to do with average workers and everything to do with the Golden State’s all-powerful government employee unions.

    Nationally, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is known for representing lower skilled workers. But, of the SEIU’s 2.1 million dues-paying members, half work for the government. In California, that translates to clout with much of the $50 million SEIU spent in the U.S. on political activities and lobbying spent in California. In fact, out of the 12 “yes” votes for the minimum wage bill in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations on March 30, the SEIU had contributed almost $100,000 out of the three-quarters of a million contributed by public employee unions—yielding a far higher return on investment than anything Wall Street could produce.

    Unions represent about 59 percent of all government workers in California. Many union contracts are tied to the minimum wage — boost the minimum wage and government union workers reap a huge windfall, courtesy of the overworked California taxpayer.

  • “The impacts of the increase in minimum wage on workers at the very bottom of the pay scales might be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ramifications of the minimum wage increase.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Indeed, that hike will push government employee wages up all up the ladder.
  • “California minimum wage hike hits L.A. apparel industry: ‘The exodus has begun.'” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Texas’ job creation has helped keep the unemployment rate low at 4.3 percent, which has now been at or below the U.S. average rate for a remarkable 111 straight months.”
  • “Number of Californians Moving to Texas Hits Highest Level in Nearly a Decade”:

    “California’s taxes and regulations are crushing businesses, and there are more opportunities in Texas for people to start new companies, get good jobs, and create better lives for their families,” said Nathan Nascimento, the director of state initiatives at Freedom Partners. “When tax and regulatory climates are bad, people will move to better economic environments—this phenomenon isn’t a mystery, it’s how marketplaces work. Not only should other state governments take note of this, but so should the federal government.”

    According to Tom Gray of the Manhattan Institute, people may be leaving California for the employment opportunities, tax breaks, or less crowded living arrangements that other states offer.

    “States with low unemployment rates, such as Texas, are drawing people from California, whose rate is above the national average,” Gray wrote. “Taxation also appears to be a factor, especially as it contributes to the business climate and, in turn, jobs.”

    “Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes,” Gray wrote. “States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that may cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.”

    (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)

  • More on the same theme. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • It’s not just pensions: “The state paid $458 million in 2001 (0.6 percent of the general fund) for state worker retiree health care and is expected to pay $2 billion (1.7 percent of the general fund) next fiscal year — up 80 percent in just the last decade.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Texas border control succeeds where the Obama Administration fails. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • California and New York still lead Texas in billionaires. But for how long?
  • “The housing bubble may have collapsed, but the public-employee pension fund managers are still with us. If anything they’re bigger than ever, still insatiably seeking high returns just over the horizon line of another economic bubble.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • How to fix San Francisco’s dysfunctional housing market. “Failed public policy and political leadership has resulted in a massive imbalance between how much the city’s population has grown this century versus how much housing has been built. The last thirteen years worth of new housing units built is approximately equal to the population growth of the last two years.” Also: “The city is forcing people out. Only the rich can live here because of the policies created by so-called progressives and so-called housing advocates.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • UC Berkley to cut 500 jobs over two years.
  • What does BART do faced with a $400 million projected deficit over the next decade? Dig deeper. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Stanton, California, is the latest California municipality facing bankruptcy. “One of the main reasons the city can’t pay its bills without the sales tax is that it gives outlandish salaries and benefits to its government workers.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • Yesterday was Tax Freedom Day in Texas.
  • Politically correct investing has already cost CalPERS $3 billion. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • “A federal jury on Wednesday convicted former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka of deliberately impeding an FBI investigation, capping a jail abuse and obstruction scandal that reached to the top echelons of the Sheriff’s Department.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Top California Democratic assemblyman Roger Hernandez accused of domestic violence.
  • Calls for UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign, she of the supergenius “pay $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative postings about the pepper-spraying of students in 2011” plan.
  • California beachwear retailer Pacific Sunwear files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
  • California retailer Sport Chalet is also shutting down.
  • 75% of current Toyota employees are willing to move to Texas to work at Toyota’s new U.S. headquarters.
  • California isn’t the only place delusional politicians are pushing a “railroad to nowhere.” The Lone Star Rail District wants to keep getting and spending money despite the fact that Union Pacific said they couldn’t use their freight lines for a commuter train between Austin and San Antonio. The tiny little problem being that the Union Pacific line was the only one under consideration…