California Can’t Afford High-speed Rail

A few weeks ago, Governor Jerry Brown and the California state legislature accomplished something that has only happened three other times in the last twenty years - they passed the state’s annual budget before the fiscal year-end deadline.

The state’s elected leaders faced the daunting task of bridging a $16 billion budget gap, but the legislators ultimately showed courageous and determined leadership, navigating their way through a multitude of ugly dilemmas and gut-wrenching decisions to get the job done.

After such a show of sound governance, why then did they decide last week to do something as fiscally irresponsible as authorizing the allocation of $8 billion to build the first segment of track for the state’s proposed high-speed rail project?

Could Term Limits Fix Legislatures and Our Broken Congress?

In light of California’s penchant for over-regulation and the state’s annual budget crisis, it’s hard to make the case that the United States Congress should look to Sacramento for an example of effective government.

There is one guiding tenet California has adopted though that may be worth replicating at the national level– term limits for legislators.

California is one of fifteen states to mandate maximum term limits for state-level Senators and Assemblymen. With the approval of a 1990 ballot measure, voters in California limited state legislators to serving a maximum of two four-year terms in the Assembly and three two-year terms in the Senate, for a total of 14 years in the legislature.

On June 5, Californians will determine if those limitations will be amended when they cast their votes on Proposition 28, a ballot measure that would limit legislative careers to a total of 12 years, but that would allow politicians to spend their entire time in either, or both, of the state houses.

Seemingly legitimate arguments have been made both for and against Proposition 28.

Supporters of Prop 28 include groups like California’s League of Women Voters and California Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens' lobby organization. Proponents of the measure arguethat the current system, which requires more experienced lawmakers to change legislative houses in order to continue their careers, forces politicians to spend too much time running for office, limiting their ability to focus on providing quality governance.

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, also notes that the high rate of turnover among legislators caused by the current term limits system leaves a perpetual crop of rookie lawmakers vulnerable to the superior experience and tactics of powerful corporate and industrial lobbyists.

Opponents of Proposition 28, citizens like Anita Anderson of the group Californians for Term Limits, assert that the new rules are “deceptive and misleading” and are nothing more than “a sneaky way of increasing the terms.”

To the degree that Prop 28 simplifies the re-election process for politicians who would no longer have to switch legislative bodies and districts in mid-career, this claim may hold true.

Californians Given Opportunity to Repeal Death Penalty on November Ballot

For many Californians, the choice between President Obama and the Republican nominee may be the second most important decision they make on this November's election ballot. In addition to their presidential selection, voters in the state will be asked to decide the fate of California's death penalty.

By gathering far more than the 504,000 signatures needed, supporters of the SAFE California Act, an initiative that would eliminate the death penalty, have gained approval to place the measure on the ballot this fall.

Passage of SAFE, the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California" Act, would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole. If the measure passes, no crime committed in the state going forward would be punishable by death, and sentences for the 723 inmates who currently occupy California's death row would transition to life in prison, reducing the total United States death row population by nearly 25%.

Proponents of SAFE argue that mountains of data collected in the three decades since the reinstatement of the death penalty make a clear case against capital punishment. No conclusive evidence exists to show that the death penalty actually deters violent crime, and the costs of maintaining the current system are exorbitant. More than $4 billion has been spent since 1978 to execute 13 prisoners on California's death row. Those who support the ban on the death penalty present a formidable argument on fiscal merit, even without the introduction of moral questions.

Opponents of the SAFE Act believe the state has not only the right, but also the responsibility, to ensure that criminal punishments fit their corresponding crimes. For California's most egregious criminal offenders, they argue, death stands as the only appropriate and fair penalty. Pro-death penalty groups believe quite strongly that justice, not economy, is the crux of the issue.

As with the rest of the nation, hot button social issues like abortion and gay marriage divide Californians.

Top 5 Non-Taxable Income Sources In California

Non-Taxable Income Examples
(Question 21, CA State Income Tax Form)

The state government in California has earned notoriety for over-regulating things, and in truth, that reputation is deserved, particularly in matters related to public safety and the environment. As you would expect, a state that is so....diligent...in its lawmaking also has some interesting details in its tax code.

While preparing my California state taxes this weekend, I ran across several unique "adjustments" I could legally make to my taxable income, which could have reduced the overall amount of state income tax I was required to pay. Sadly, as I earned income from none of these sources, they didn't apply to me.

Here are the Top 5 Non-Taxable Income Sources In California.

1. Reward from a Crime Hotline
 - Rest assured, if you tattle in California, you won't be taxed for it.

2. False Imprisonment Compensation
 - That's right. If we get overzealous and inadvertently jail you, we'll pay you for your time in tax-free dollars.

3. Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payment
 - I had no idea the Ottoman Turks were still relevant, but apparently they did some awful stuff to Armenians between 1915-1923. Good to know compensation for near genocide is non-taxable.

4. San Bruno Gas Explosion
- Any reimbursement you received because Pacific Gas & Electric accidentally blew up your home and all your belongings is non-taxable. This gives me an idea for a new state motto: California - our generosity knows no bounds.

5. California Lottery Winnings
- If you're one of the lucky winners (and there must be a handful of you somewhere), you don't have to pay tax on your California Lottery winnings.
Note: You DO have to pay tax on winnings from any other state's lottery.

With so many specific items called out as non-taxable income (including many things I could never have imagined were taxable in the first place), I was surprised to see some income sources not addressed.

For example, do children have to pay taxes on income earned from street corner lemonade stands? If I won American Idol but I'm actually from Oklahoma, is my prize money taxable? Can I keep all those foreign coins I found while beachcombing with my metal detector? And how about the $20 bill I found in the pocket of that coat I haven't worn since last winter? All mine?

It's My Fault (San Andreas, That Is)

A few days I blogged about the four minor earthquakes we experienced here in Northern California over a seven-day span. These temblors were mild, registering between a magnitude 3.0-4.0 on the Richter scale, which is not particularly earth-shattering (pun-intended). For most of us in the Bay Area, the impact of a 3.5 quake is that you hear a short low rumbling sound, or maybe your kitchen window rattles for a second. Truthfully, I am often blissfully unaware of quakes of this magnitude, until I hear about them on the local evening news or read about them online. Still, four tremors in a week is enough to make a fellow curious.

I did some reading to find out what significance geologists ascribe to this rapid series of mini-quakes, and from what I can tell, the scientific conclusions are akin to, "who the hell really knows." They could be foreshocks, minor tremors that precede seriously bad evening news broadcasts ("it was a rough commute on Highway 101 this afternoon as the entire road liquified and fell into a gaping hole in the earth"), but more likely, it's just routine shifting of tectonic plates - the geologic equivalent of the earth having a yawn and a scratch.

I can accept a little ambiguity. We are talking about the earth's crust, after all, which was formed by complex geologic pressures and events that took place over billions of years (or nearly 5,000 evangelical years). If we need a few thousand more generations of scientists to really nail this down, then so be it.  

My earthquake research led me to discover more about the San Andreas Fault, the 800 mile long crack in the earth's surface that runs through California, and the place where two of the earth's giant tectonic plates meet, and then proceed to occasionally tussle a bit. When these two plates rub elbows, there is enormous friction and an energy release in the vicinity of the fault line, which sometimes causes your hummels and tchotchkes to shimmy a little, and other times causes tall buildings and double-decker bridges to collapse.

The San Andreas Fault serves as a perforated line that runs north-south through California, wherein the state can conveniently be torn in two with the western half then free to drift out into the Pacific Ocean. Most of us who ever lived outside of California have made that joke, but most of us didn't subsequently end up moving ironically into the heart of the land of tectonic wonders.