When the government refuses to tell you information about your own minor children, they are not acting in the interests of the children or the parents. The government is acting in the interests of someone else. Do not endanger your children by trusting these people with their care.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California became the first U.S. state to bar school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change under a law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The law bans school rules requiring teachers and other staff to disclose a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation to any other person without the child’s permission. Proponents of the legislation say it will help protect LGBTQ+ students who live in unwelcoming households. But opponents say it will hinder schools’ ability to be more transparent with parents.
“Severe” lol. Californians are adorable about what they get worked up about. Bless their hearts.
While Newsom has not taken away health insurance from anyone, he proposed the state stop paying for health care workers to care for some 14,000 disabled immigrants in their home. That would save the state $94.7 million. While he hasn’t pulled back the state’s commitment to expanded kindergarten, he proposed eliminating $550 million that would have helped school districts build the facilities they need to teach all of those extra students.
After promising to pay for child care for another 146,000 children from low-income families, Newsom on Friday proposed pausing that expansion at 119,000. And after promising to boost how much money doctor’s get to treat Medicaid patients, Newsom on Friday proposed canceling $6.7 billion that had been set aside to do that.
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In total, Newsom is proposing $32.8 billion in cuts over two years, including eliminating 10,000 unfilled state jobs and an 8% cut to state operations — including things like eliminating landlines. He promised there would be no layoffs, furloughs or salary cuts for the state’s more than 221,000 state workers.
Greg LaVay, a 79-year-old retired entrepreneur from San Diego, says he used to visit McDonald’s a few times a month — but recently decided to switch to sit-down restaurants for dinner instead.
Why? LaVay noticed the price of hamburgers in his area inching up to $2.50 apiece, with a Big Mac going for $5.39 today.
Since September’s ruling that California fast food franchisees would be required to increase its minimum wage for employees to $20 starting in April, several eateries have embarked on cost-cutting measures such as raising menu prices.
A recent analysis from market research firm Datassential reveals the Golden State’s fast-food and fast-casual restaurants, like McDonalds, Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut, have lifted prices by about 10% overall since September. This growth far surpasses that of the U.S. as a whole, which has seen chains inflate prices by just over 5%.
Several fast food chains have said they’re raising menu prices in response to the minimum wage hike.
In 2023, California’s population dipped below 39 million, the lowest count since 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Data shows the state lost 75,423 residents last year — continuing a dramatic trend that started with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
What’s concerning is not how many people are leaving — the state has experienced lopsided out-migration for decades, according to the Los Angeles Times — but who is leaving.
Analysis of the approximately 750,000 people who have bid farewell to California over the last three years has revealed that thousands more high-earning, well-educated workers have left the Golden State than have moved in.
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It is not just wealthy residents leaving; businesses are also exiting the state — again due to high tax rates, punitive regulations, high labor, utility and energy costs, among other things.
That loss of vital income tax is very problematic for California, which is facing a record $68 billion budget deficit, largely due to an unprecedented drop in tax revenue.
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In tax years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who moved from California to another state was about $137,000, according to IRS migration and personal income data.
That would place those individuals in California’s largest state income tax bracket — at 9.3% — which applies to single filers who earn between $61,215 and $312,686 per year, or married couples filing jointly with an annual income of $122,429 to $625,372.
If you earned $137,000 last year in California, your estimated state income tax for 2023 would be $9,896, according to the SmartAsset tax calculator. And if you reduced your taxable income by maxing out your 401(k) contribution at $22,500 (the 2023 total) and your IRA contribution at $7500 (for those aged 50 and older), your estimated state income tax would be around $6,827.
by Owen | 2055, 29 Jan 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
Wut? They have different alert systems based on the race of the missing person?
The Feather Alert, signed into law in 2022, was designed to be similar to the Amber Alert, which since its inception in 1996 has located more than 1,100 missing children nationwide. Assemblymember James Ramos (D-Highland), who was the first California Native American elected to the Legislature, argued that the state needed a separate system for missing Indigenous people because of high rates of violence and abductions in tribal communities. It’s one of seven categories of missing-person alerts in California.
by Owen | 1731, 6 Jan 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
It’s not going to get any better. It’s going to get worse. Our mission must be to prevent federal taxpayers from being forced to bail them out of their stupidity.
California lawmakers convened for the first session of 2024 on Wednesday and are tasked with tackling the state’s record $68 billion budget deficit.
The enormous shortfall is largely attributed to a “severe revenue decline,” the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) reported last month.
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Total income tax collections were down 25% in 2022-23, according to the LAO — a decline compared to those seen during the Great Recession and dot-com bust.
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The Golden State’s population declined for the first time in 2021, as it lost around 281,000 residents, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). In 2022, the population dropped again by around 211,000 residents — with many moving to other states like Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.
“Housing costs loom large in this dynamic,” according to the PPIC, which found through a survey that 34% of Californians are considering moving out of the state due to housing costs.
Other factors such as the post-pandemic remote work trend — which has resulted in empty office towers in California’s downtown cores — have also played a role in migration out of the state.
by Owen | 0844, 30 Dec 2323 | Politics | 0 Comments
Socialists are incredibly generous with other people’s money. Bear in mind that this is funded by federal and state taxes. So federal taxpayers who never had the opportunity to vote for this are being forced to pay for healthcare for illegal aliens. And the state of California, which is broke, is allocating billions of dollars to pay for this instead of things that benefit actual Californians. But hey… Newsome gets to feel good about himself at night so it’s all worth it.
Starting Jan. 1, all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, will qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.
Previously, undocumented immigrants were not qualified to receive comprehensive health insurance but were allowed to receive emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.
The final expansion going into effect Jan. 1 will make approximately 700,000 undocumented residents between ages 26 and 49 eligible for full coverage, according to California State Sen. María Elena Durazo.
Just a reminder that the real minimum wage is $0. This is the result of rich liberal politicians thinking that they know better than everyone else. I’m sure that the thousands of newly employed Californians appreciate the liberals in Sacramento looking out for them.
With the minimum wage in California increasing to $20 an hour for fast food workers in 2024, some Pizza Hut franchisees say they’re preparing to eliminate jobs as well as delivery options for customers.
As first reported by ABC News Los Angeles station KABC, two major Pizza Hut franchisees with restaurants in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties are planning layoffs that would impact 1,200 workers.
The mass layoffs would also reportedly impact another 800 workers at Pizza Hut locations in Sacramento, Central California, Southern Oregon, and the Reno-Tahoe area, according to KABC.
The cuts would eliminate the franchisees’ delivery services for customers in those locations, they said. Customers will instead have to rely on services like Uber Eats or DoorDash.
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The wage legislation, AB 1228, which was signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in late September, is the catalyst for this decision by operators, the franchisees say.
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Although a decision has not been made official, Chipotle CEO Jack Hartung said on a November earnings call that the pricing at the popular fast-casual Mexican restaurant would have to change “to take care of the dollar cost” and cover the new margins.
“We are definitely going to pass this on. We just haven’t made a final decision as to what level yet,” he said.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota is projected to have a budget surplus of $2.4 billion this biennium, state officials said Wednesday. But there are warning signs in future years that could lead to a potential deficit.
The $2.4 billion surplus is $800 million more than end-of-session estimates, but smaller than the eye-popping $17 billion surplus the state legislature had to work with when they began session this past January, before it passed a $72 billion state budget by adjournment in May.
California is facing a major budget crisis due to a “severe revenue decline,” and a record $68 billion budget deficit, likely forcing Democrats running the state to cut spending as the mass exodus of people and businesses moving to Republican-run states continues.
According to California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) report released Thursday, the state’s budget deficit has grown exponentially in just a few months’ time, up more than $54 billion from just $14.3 billion in June.
Minnesota has burned through a healthy surplus with massive spending and California already has a massive deficit. Both states are run by Democrats and are merely at different points in a very predictable trajectory.
There’s a lesson for Wisconsin here. We have a surplus right now that Democrats, and some Republicans, are fighting over how to spend it. The lesson is that politicians will spend whatever you give them and then some. The only way to control the size of government is to limit the money they can spend. If Democrats manage to retake the Legislature, this generation of Democrats has shown absolutely no willingness to restrain their spending. It would be a balance sheet bloodbath.
On Sunday night, Newsom announced his decision to appoint Laphonza Butler to fill Feinstein’s seat in the interim. Before the appointment, Butler served as the president of EMILYs List, a group whose goal is to elect Democratic women to office who favor access to abortion.
But according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission from September 2023, Butler doesn’t live in California, nor anywhere close to the state. Instead, it appears she lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington, DC suburb.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California won’t be giving unemployment checks to workers on strike, with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoing a bill Saturday that had been inspired by high-profile work stoppages in Hollywood and the hotel industry.
Newsom, a Democrat, says he supports workers and often benefits from campaign contributions from labor unions. But he said he vetoed this bill because the fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits will be nearly $20 billion in debt by the end of the year.
“Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt,” Newsom wrote in a veto message.
The fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits is already more than $18 billion in debt. That’s because the fund ran out of money and had to borrow from the federal government during the pandemic, when Newsom ordered most businesses to close and caused a massive spike in unemployment. The fund was also beset by massive amounts of fraud that cost the state billions of dollars.
The bill would have let workers who were on strike for at least two weeks receive unemployment checks from the state, which can be as much as $450 per week. Normally, only workers who lost their job through no fault of their own are eligible for those benefits.
Bass said she has been told that one reason for the departures is dissatisfaction with the rules in place at the program’s hotels and motels. At the L.A. Grand Hotel, which is in downtown Los Angeles and currently being used as temporary homeless housing, residents have been prohibited from having guests in their rooms, she said.
Others have left Inside Safe because of struggles with addiction or deteriorating mental health, Bass said.
A Californian state senator has urged black residents of his state to be ‘realistic’ about reparations, a week after the task force – set up to look into the issue – approved its final proposals.
The task force has not announced how much they think should be given to eligible residents.
Economists studying the issue have argued the state is responsible for more than $500 billion, due to decades of over-policing, mass incarceration and redlining that kept black families from receiving loans and living in certain neighborhoods.
Their plan must be approved by the governor, Gavin Newsom, who has already said he does not support the distribution of checks, arguing that there are better ways to deal with the legacy of racist policies.
On Friday, Newsom said the state’s budget deficit is expected to soar to almost $32 billion, nearly $10 billion more than he had projected in January.
A state senator who sits on the nine-member task force said people should not get their hopes up.
Yeah, reparations are stupid, but the sooner the back of California is broken for their idiocy, perhaps it will bring them back to sanity. One can hope…
Cause. Effect. There are a lot of companies that make decisions like this without the publicity.
Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol says California governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed changes to the minimum wage could cause the restaurant chain to rethink its presence in the state.
“We pay well beyond $15 an hour in California. So there is legislation that has the potential to take the hourly wage up to $21, $22 an hour that will put organizations in a place where prices probably have to rise. It’s unfortunate because it also impacts the economic model, and that could impact how many restaurants we open in the future in a state like California which is a shame,” Niccol said at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit on Monday.
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The legislation could pave the way for raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to $22 an hour for employers with more than 26 workers. Currently, the minimum wage stands at $15 in the state.
“Equitable? You signed a bill from the hills of Napa that singles out franchise owners with new rules and costs to appease your biggest campaign donors; will raise prices on lower income Californians and will accelerate business leaving the state,” tweeted the CEO of the International Franchise Association Matt Haller to Newsom.
Lest you think I’m being facetious, recall how California got started on its journey to having the toughest gun control laws in the country.
It was in 1967 that members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense staged a protest at the California Capitol. Armed with the handguns and shotguns they normally used to protect Black neighborhoods in Oakland by “policing the police,” they announced that the time had come for “Black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” And then they went inside.
Lawmakers were so freaked out that they quickly passed the very bill the Black Panthers had been protesting — the Mulford Act, which banned the open carry of loaded weapons without a permit. Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it posthaste.
A long shot, but it would be a sea change if Elder won in California.
A new poll has revealed conservative radio host Larry Elder is gaining popularity with California voters as Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a recall election in September.
The Emerson College/ Nexstar Media poll, published on Friday, found 48 percent of voters still want Newsom to remain in office, even as momentum for a recall grows. 43 percent of people polled now say they will vote to recall Newsom – up from 38 percent in March.
If Newsom is removed from office, there are 40 candidates currently vying to replace him – and the new poll shows Elder leading the pack.
The 69-year-old Republican gets 16 percent of the vote share among those candidates, ahead of businessman John Cox and former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, who are tied in second place with 6 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the poll shows Caitlyn Jenner struggling to gain traction among voters despite widespread name recognition. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star is polling at just 4 percent.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The California Democratic Party snubbed U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Saturday by handing its official endorsement and a badly needed boost to state Sen. Kevin de Leon, her longshot Democratic challenger.
In backing de Leon, a majority of the party’s 360-member executive board ignored Feinstein’s calls to stay neutral in the race. Her allies had warned an endorsement would create an intraparty squabble that could detract from important down-ballot races.
De Leon has long been courting party activists and appealed to those seeking a fresh face and a more progressive senator to fight against President Donald Trump.
“Today’s vote is a clear-eyed rejection of politics as usual in Washington, D.C.,” de Leon said in a statement after the vote. “We have presented Californians with the first real alternative to the worn-out Washington playbook in a quarter-century.”
Advocates who want California to secede from the rest of the United States were given the green light Monday to begin collecting signatures for their initiative.
California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced the ballot proposal had been cleared.
The latest measure would ask voters in 2020 to decide whether to open up a secession discussion. If passed, a second election would be held a year later asking voters to affirm the decision and become an independent country.
Advocates have until mid-October to gather 365,880 signatures of registered voters to get it on the ballot.
I seem to remember from my history books that we fought a bloody war that decided that states can’t secede. The United States is like the mafia. Once you’re in, you can never get out.
But in this case, the rest of the nation might not fight too hard. True, California is an agricultural and economic power that the nation needs, but even an independent California would need a robust trade with the U.S. And given that a full third of the U.S.’s welfare recipients are in California, we could have the benefits of trading with California without the burden of supporting their welfare state.
A pair of California lawmakers want to claw back some of steep tax cuts that corporations will receive under the federal tax overhaul signed last month by President Donald Trump.
Democratic Assemblymen Kevin McCarty of Sacramento and Phil Ting of San Francisco announced Thursday that they will pursue a constitutional amendment to add a surcharge on large companies that do business in California, potentially raising billions of dollars to expand social services for Californians.
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The proposal from McCarty and Ting creates a new tax for businesses in California, which already has a state corporate tax rate of 8.84 percent. Companies with annual net income of more than $1 million in California would pay an additional surcharge of 7 percent, or half their savings from the recent federal tax cut.
If approved by two-thirds of the Legislature, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 22 would go before the voters for final consideration. Proponents estimate it would raise between $15 billion and $17 billion a year, which would be directed toward funding for education, college affordability initiatives, child care and preschool slots, taxpayer rebates and an expansion of California’s Earned Income Tax Credit.
Business groups have long complained that California is among the worst states in the country for companies because of its high taxes and extensive regulations. But with the “Trump tax giveaway,” McCarty said, corporations can now afford to give some of the money back to Californians who need the help.
The outflow of businesses from California has been happening for quite a while. This will help push some of those businesses out to other states. Wisconsin is open for business!
Before sunrise on New Year’s Day, cashiers welcomed the first legal sales of recreational marijuana in California, launching a new industry expected to bring in billions of dollars while accepting new regulations and taxes.
I admit that this is not my area of expertise, but this seems like an expensive high.
They spent $45.37 on the three joints, weed named after Jack Herer, their friend and now decreased advocate for legalized marijuana.
