08/26/2009
Fact: With the failure by the Assembly last week to reduce California’s prison population, there has been a lot of talk about how California now spends more on corrections than on higher education.

How did we get there? According to Department of Finance records, general fund expenditures adjusted for inflation between 1992 and 2008, show a 115% increase for Corrections and Rehabilitation and only a 20% increase for higher education. Here’s the list of increased spending in real terms (i.e., adjusted for inflation) for several major categories. Although some categories may change their composition over time, this table provides a good overview of state priorities.

(For more information, see http://ca.rand.org/stats/govtfin/statesum.html)

08/14/2009
Fact: The “cash for clunkers” program has been sold, in part, as a way to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But according to University of California, Davis economist Chris Knittel, the cost of removing one ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere under the program is nearly $300, even using generous assumptions. (See the report under Working Papers at Knittel’s web site.)

What’s the cost of removing a ton of carbon under other programs? In the European Trading System, the cost per ton is about $20. In the voluntary market in the United States, it’s about one-half that or even less. So we’re paying perhaps thirty times too much for environmental benefits under cash for clunkers, meaning that both taxpayers and the environment lose………

08/12/2009
Fact: The estimated value of the federal tax break for employer-sponsored health care is more than $100 billion a year–and growing each year. That benefit, which benefits high-income individuals with generous benefits and penalizes low-income individuals without health care, is not addressed in the current health care reform bill…….For more information, see Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2007-2011.”