As a brief respite from our discussions of all the various flat tax plans being proposed (or recycled) – below is a post I did for Metrotrends yesterday on budget antics at the subnational level. Last month I blogged about how the federal and state governments could learn from cities, which seemed to be making [...]

Michael Lewis is a brilliant writer who has brought clarity and insight to the sometimes arcane worlds of Wall Street, baseball, and parenting.  In his latest book, he surveys fallout from the 2008 financial crisis in exotic locales such as Greece, Iceland, and California.  Uh oh. Dedicated readers of this blog know that I have [...]

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of California’s initiative process . In 1911, California famously adopted the direct initiative process and ballot box decision-making has become almost as synonymous with the Golden State as beaches, hi-tech innovation, and Hollywood.  While 75% of voters in California still see direct initiatives as a good thing, a similar [...]

Legislative leaders in California, big box stores, and Amazon have reached an agreement to delay internet  tax collection until September 2012. There is no word on whether Governor Jerry Brown will support the plan and no mention of whether the 7,000 distribution center jobs Amazon previously offered the state is part of the package.   Amazon [...]

After threats and tough talk for most of the summer, Amazon seems to be changing tactics in its battle against collecting sales tax on purchases by Californians. For months, the firm has been bankrolling a ballot initiative to reverse a new state law requiring online retailers to collect the levy. Wednesday, Godfather-like, Amazon made Governor [...]

Texas Governor Rick Perry, the latest entrant in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, swaggers into the race as the very personification of a low-tax, small-government, Lone Star politician. But his record on taxes over more than two decades as a legislator and governor turns out to be much more complicated (dare I say nuanced) than that. [...]

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, California’s April income tax revenues were well above forecast levels.  Many other states, especially those reliant on somewhat progressive income taxes have also reported higher than expected revenues.  Goldman Sachs reports first quarter state revenues were up 9 percent year over year with April alone up 12 [...]

Last week, while admiring the seals frolicking on a San Diego beach, I read some good news about California’s tax collections. State officials had just announced that Fiscal Year 2010-2011 revenues will likely exceed expectations by $2 billion, largely because personal income tax receipts are running ahead of projections.  Though still below 2010 levels, April [...]

While the budget difficulties facing states and the federal government are getting a lot of attention, we hear much less about the fiscal woes of cities and other local governments.  This is partly because following 50 states is easier than tracking almost 90 thousand local governments (including over 19 thousand cities, 17 thousand townships, 3 [...]

Do state and local workers get paid more or less than their private sector counterparts? That old question has taken on renewed life with the budget and labor disputes raging in Wisconsin and other states. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy question to answer. As Ford Fessenden notes in a nice set of graphics at the New York Times, one [...]