Posts Tagged ‘Chuck DeVore’

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Texas vs. California: First 2013 Roundup

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Judging from the Fiscal Cliff votes, the United States appears to be eager to follow in the footsteps of Greece and California, rushing to unsustainable spending, crushing debt loads and inevitable bankruptcy, rather than following the lead of Texas and the Red State model of debt-free limited government and free enterprise. So let’s see where the two states are, shall we?

  • Via Reason comes a link to the website Pension Tsunami, which contains much of interest for those charting California’s decline.
  • One method California cities are using to continue funding their heroin outrageous pension spending habit is issuing Pension Obligation Bonds, where they sell bonds to pay for pension obligations and then invest them. Indeed, some that got burned by the tactic in the 1990s (like Oakland) are trying again. “Bonds issued in 1997 were, on average, underwater in 2007, even before the stock market crash…’That’s like a compulsive gambler telling you that he has to bet it all on red to make up for his past losses.’”
  • “Bankruptcy is the best bet most cities have for getting out of their crushing health and retirement obligations to public workers….Government employee compensation, mostly for health and retirement, is at the heart of nearly all the current and looming municipal bankruptcies across the country.”
  • Federal judge to Calpers: No, you can’t rewrite bankruptcy laws to save outrageous union pensions. Not yours.
  • California: Pensions or Police? Pick one.
  • Stockton attempts to pull a Chrysler, attempting to screw its bondholders in a bid to leave outrageous union pensions untouched.
  • While California wonders how to fill it’s perpetual budget shortfall, Texas debates what to do with its surplus.
  • Over at TPPF, Chuck Devore wonders why Californians don’t stage a tax revolt. “In the meantime, Texas will be more than happy to receive into its welcoming arms people who want to work hard, invest, and create jobs.”
  • Want a glimpse of California’s future? Spain is running out of pension fund to raid.

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »

    Texas vs. California Roundup: October 2, 2012

    Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

    Time for another Texas vs. California roundup. First up: The man who moved from one to the other:

  • Chuck DeVore examines the differences between California and Texas. Scariest takeaway? “With one-eighth of the nation’s population, California has one-third of America’s welfare recipients.”
  • A review of the book Crazifornia. Pay special attention to the California bridge tester who couldn’t test bridges because he was up on child sex crime charges.
  • More on how California has underestimated their debt obligations. By an order of magnitude.
  • “City College of San Francisco is perilously close to bankruptcy, in part because it employs nearly twice as many faculty as similar colleges and pays them better – yet educates no more students on average, says a new financial analysis of the state’s largest public school. The college got into trouble because, unlike other colleges, it failed to make the budget cuts necessary to keep up with reductions in state funding, never set aside money for its growing retirement obligations, and ‘has provided salary increases and generous benefits with no discernible means to pay for them.'” So it’s like the State of California in miniature. Bonus: Its current budge assumes the passage of Proposition 30.
  • And speaking of propositions, Prop 37, requiring the labeling of genetically modified food, will be a windfall for trial lawyers.
  • Atwater is the latest California town having layoffs and considering bankruptcy.
  • The city manager of Stockton explains why the city had to declare bankruptcy. It’s filled with special pleading for vested union interests: “Nor can we leave the CalPERS state pension system. CalPERS should be reformed, but if Stockton didn’t offer an industry-standard pension plan, we simply would not be able to staff an already challenged police department. It is unrealistic for creditors to posit that Stockton reject existing pension obligations.” Attention anyone thinking of buying California bonds: When it comes to paying you or paying union cronies, you’re going to get the short end of the stick, no matter what the law says.
  • What other California cities could declare bankruptcy? How about San Diego and Los Angeles?
  • More signs the Texas economy is outpacing the rest of the nation.
  • Texas bonds are outperforming the rest of the nation.
  • Texas adds more construction jobs than any other state.
  • Texas cuts crime more than the rest of the nation.

    • (Hat tip: Willisms, City Journal, others.)

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    TPPF Conference Call on the ObamaCare Decision

    Thursday, June 28th, 2012

    Just got off a Texas Public Policy Foundation conference call with Chuck DeVore and Arlene Wohlgemuth on the effects of the Supreme Court ObamaCare decision. Just in case you hadn’t read anything on the Internet today, that ruling was 5-4 affirming ObamaCare as constitutional, majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, not on Commerce Clause grounds, but on congress’ ability to tax:

    The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

    Here some no-doubt random bits of information I gleaned from the conference call:

  • Of all the possible scenarios experts looked at in a possible ObamaCare ruling, this wasn’t one of them.
  • All the cost drivers and massive increase in bureaucracy is still there.
  • Texas was already looking at a $5 billion Medicaid shortfall for the next biennium; ObamaCare will likely make that a $15 shortfall.
  • No one knows if Texas will undertake Medicaid expansion or not.
  • ObamaCare was a consequence of Republican losses in 2006 and 2008, and a cause of Republican victories in 2010.
  • As a tax, ObamaCare can be repealed with 51 Senate votes (no filibuster).
  • Roberts’ decision “built a fence” around the Commerce Clause, possibly preventing further expansion of federal powers under that guise. (This has lead to some observers to suggest that Roberts is playing the “long game” of constraining the growth of the federal government.)
  • The court did invalidate (7-2) Medicare/Medicaid penalties for non-compliance, in that states cannot be “dragooned” into post-facto changes with the threat of withdrawn funding for established programs. DeVore: “This is a victory for the 10th Amendment and Federalism.”
  • That change might offer challenges to a whole lot of legislation.
  • The politicized way in which the Obama Administration has granted waivers to the politically connected might also offer avenues for equal protection challenges.

    • This TPPF policycast also covers some of the same topics discussed on the conference call.

    So: That’s my brief recap of the conference call. I’m still digesting the ruling itself, and reactions to the ruling. I might be doing that for some time…

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    Posted in Budget, ObamaCare, Supreme Court, Welfare State | No Comments »

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