Category Archives: California
No, California doesn’t spend more on prisons than schools
I’ll have more praise and criticism of David Brooks’ latest New York Times column in a future post, but right now I want to hone in on one particular aside he wrote: California spends more on its prison system than … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics
Spurious Capital Gains Tax Math in California
Meg Whitman, running for the governor of a state facing a $20 billion budget shortfall over five years, wants to eliminate the state’s tax on capital gains. The very premise is a bit misleading: California, unlike the federal government, has … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics
A Tale of Two Tom Campbells
Once upon a time, Tom Campbell was a brutally honest candidate for governor of California. Two things changed, however, in a matter of months, one trivial and one portentous. Respectively, I left the state, and Tom Campbell, facing Meg Whitman’s … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics, Politics
The VAT Marches On… to Sacramento?
California’s Commission on the 21st Century Economy has released a report that, among other things, recommends the state stabilize tax revenue by adopting a “net receipts tax”, as well as eliminating sales taxes and lowering income taxes. Bruce Bartlett and … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics
Unintended Consequences in Housing?
Dave Roberts assembles some data in Sonoma County, CA to argue that the benefits of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer’s tax credit are more than swallowed up by the increase in home prices driven by energized demand. It’s a good economic … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics
All roads lead to Reagan
This will only be interesting to California fiscal history buffs, but it turns out that state spending today is about where it would have been had Proposition 13’s lesser-known ancestor managed to win voter approval. I’m talking about Proposition 1, … Continue reading
Filed under California, Economics, Politics
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