Time for another Texas vs. California roundup, albeit a somewhat smallish one:
UC-Berkley misused nearly $2 million in National Science Foundation funds on staff salaries, travel expenses, and booze.
How California teacher’s unions indoctrinate children with left-wing propaganda.
Thanks to overly generous pension rules, Vallejo may be headed for a second bankruptcy. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Eureka, California will be laying off police to pay for pensions. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Farmer Brothers coffee roasters is moving from California to Denton. (Previously.)
Jerry Brown has ordered a radical cut in California’s greenhouse gases. Evidently he wants all of California’s manufacturing to move out of state…
Though Texas does a vastly better job than California managing statewide finances, local debt is close to California’s:
Among the top ten most populous states in the nation, local debt in the Lone Star State was the second highest overall, at $219.7 billion. Only California’s local governments had amassed more, at $269.2 billion.
On a per capita basis, local debt in Texas ranked as the second highest ($8,431 owed per person), with only New York in tougher shape ($10,204 owed per person). The average local debt burden among all mega-states was $5,956 owed per person.
So California may use drought bond money to pay for water not for people, but for the Delta Smelt?
West Coast truckers strike over alleged millions in wage theft. You may have gathered that I’m not exactly a pro-union guy, but from what a relative has told me about the trucking industry, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the strikers were fully justified in this instance…
About Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person is a political commentator and science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. His political work has appeared in National Review, Reason, The Freeman, Liberty and The World & I. His SF has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, Postscripts, Jim Baen's Universe, Fear, and several anthologies. He owns such a large library (mostly science fiction first editions) he had to buy a two-story house to put it in, and then adopted a golden retriever to drag him out of his house on a regular basis.
