Free Republic

California's highest-in-the-nation taxes: Schools rank at the bottom, Infrastructure is deteriorating, Gas tax revenue is used for social programs, Highest poverty in the nation,Recreational pot is now legal, Governor, obsessed with climate change More is never enough for California politicians, as evidenced by our highest-in-the-nation taxes. The once-Golden State of opportunity and innovation ranks 48th in the Tax Foundation’s 2018 State Business Tax Climate Index. Again. Back in 2012 I wrote about our lousy 48th ranking, and that was before Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 passed, which dramatically increased sales and income taxes. And it was before the California Legislature...

On Sept. 29, Congress held a hearing on the rules proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would likely destroy much of the small-dollar loan industry and drive many low-income and poor credit-risk people into the arms of loan sharks. [snip] ...the black marketeers will be the only ones serving the poor. [snip] The Internal Revenue Service’s new Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act regulations have made it both very expensive and, in many cases, impossible for Americans living abroad to obtain bank accounts in the countries where they live. The new IRS and Treasury “know your customer” regulations...

Environmental regulations restricting the construction of forest access roads have limited the ability of the Forest Service to clear combustible brush and trees, adding dangerous fuel to the wildfires that have ravaged Colorado this summer. The so-called “roadless rule,” which was first implemented in 2001 by President Clinton shortly before he left office, restricts and in many cases prohibits local and federal officials from building and maintaining roads that allow firefighters to clear out growth that could instantly become tinder for a new fire. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, regularly referred to as the 2001 roadless rule, was adopted in...

A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down. Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year. Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way. “It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a...

For the seventh year in a row, a survey of chief executives has ranked California as the nation's worst state in which to do business. More than 500 U.S. CEOs polled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Chief Executive magazine based their opinions on numerous factors, including regulations, tax policies, work force quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure.

California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, today said he will pursue emergency legislation forcing state agencies to review all regulations and recommend a wholesale re-writing of the state's regulatory scheme. In an interview with The Bee Capitol Bureau, Steinberg said he'll propose "urgency legislation that directs each state agency to review its regulations, identify any duplicative, archaic or inconsistent rules." Steinberg said lawmakers could then act on the recommendations over the next six months, perhaps expunging some rules from the 5,000-page California Code of Regulations as part of the state budget negotiations. "To our knowledge, no one, not...

Sacramento - -- Regulations on small businesses in California have cost the state's economy $492 billion and 3.8 million jobs, according to a report quietly released by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office this week. Republicans in the Legislature have pounced on the findings and on Thursday called the report the "smoking gun" that proves lawmakers are killing the state's economy through burdensome government mandates. But Democrats and at least one capital think tank are highly skeptical of the accuracy of the findings. The 84-page report does not specify which regulations were studied and relies on data collected largely by Forbes. Citing...

Nanny State Only Has a Zest for Bossing People Around Three small stories illustrate the Nannies in action. The primary goal of the Nanny State appears to be to make life so uncomfortable and colorless for the citizens, that they fail to understand how uncomfortable their lives have become. For example: Living in Britain is now more dangerous than the Balkans"You are more likely to be assaulted, robbed and burgled in Britain than in the region of southeast Europe once synonymous with war and gangsters, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime." So the...