Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News California Democrats Propose Higher Business Taxes To Pay For Homeless Programs

State and local Democratic leaders are pushing for an increase in California’s corporate tax rate to tackle the state’s homelessness crisis, a proposal that could generate billions of dollars in new funding but faces long odds to becoming law.

A coalition of state legislators, big-city mayors and housing advocates introduced a bill Wednesday, AB71, that would raise the tax rate by nearly 0.8% for companies that earn more than $5 million in annual revenue in the state. It would also tax California-based corporations for the revenue they earn from intellectual property, such as patents and trademarks, held by their foreign subsidiaries.

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Business groups, however, issued a letter Wednesday urging the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom to reject any new tax measures.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, said it was “insane” to consider raising corporate taxes when the state is projecting a $15 billion surplus in the next fiscal year. He said lawmakers should steer money California already has toward homelessness services, rather than approving Newsom’s idea for a $1.5 billion zero-emission-vehicles rebate program.

“That’s exactly the kind of thinking and governance that people don’t want to see,” Lapsley said.

Read More [[link removed]] California Unemployment Fraud 4 Times Worse Than First Reported; $8 billion Paid To Criminals

The amount of unemployment funds stolen from California taxpayers in 2020 may total more than $8 billion -- four times higher than estimated just one month ago.

The numbers are staggering; the solutions elusive. As our sister station KGO-TV found out, even states credited with cracking down on fraud have had issues.

Since the start of the pandemic, we've shared countless stories of struggling Californians desperate to get their unemployment benefits.

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But Robert Lapsley of the California Business Roundtable says the number is higher -- way higher.

The state revealed before the pandemic more than 8% of all jobless claims paid between 2016 to 2019 went to scammers.

Last year California paid out $106 billion in EDD benefits.

"If you take that same number, that puts you know, the total fraud, you know, at least eight-and-a-half billion dollars," said Lapsley.

Read More [[link removed]] EDD An Easy Target, Fights To Crack Down On Bogus Claims

alifornia’s Employment Development Department has been an easy target for fraud, but the agency keeps fighting to crack down on bogus claims.

According to the Sacramento Bee, a fraud ring in Moscow tried to scam EDD on the first day the agency implemented a new ID verification system last October. A spokesperson for ID.me tells KTVU the system is flagging $750 million a week in fraudulent claims across the 14 states it is working in, including California.

Robert Lapsley, President of the California Business Rountable, said their organization has been tracking the fraud because it impacts California workers and employers. The organization found that of the $112 billion in benefits EDD paid out between March 2020 and Jan. 2, 2021, roughly $8.9 billion went to scammers.

Lapsley said their organization used state reported data that showed the improper payment rate on claims between 2016 and 2019 was 8%. That percentage was applied to the benefits EDD paid out during to the pandemic to reach the $8.9 billion figure. The amount is more than four times higher than the $2 billion in fraudulent claims reported by the state.

Read More [[link removed]] In California: State Offers Vaccines To All 65+; EDD Fraud Is Worse Than Thought

Last month, Bank of America revealed that $2 billion had been paid out in fraudulent unemployment claims by California's Employment Development Division (EDD).

But abc7.com reports that Robert Lapsley of the California Business Roundtable says that number isn't even close. He says of the $106 billion in benefits the EDD paid out in 2020, about $8.5 billion went to fraudulent claims.

According to Lapsley, California mishandled the pandemic early on and didn't do enough to prevent fraud. Conversely, he says, the state of Pennsylvania should be commended for cracking down early on fraud by working with other states to identify new fraud methods before they got out of control in their state.

State officials in Pennsylvania, however, say their problems mirror California's.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation Biden Covid-19 Relief Plan Aims To Ease Poverty, Advance Democratic Priorities

President-elect Joe Biden’s economic-relief plan places low-income families at its center, delivering cash, housing assistance, food and child-care support to the most vulnerable Americans. It is also a way for Democrats to get some long-sought priorities into law.

Mr. Biden released his $1.9 trillion plan on Thursday, urging Congress to help states, provide money to households and accelerate vaccinations in the early days of his administration. Democrats applauded the package, but its legislative path is uncertain as Mr. Biden tries to find enough Republican support in the Senate to overcome procedural hurdles.

Democrats, who will have slim House and Senate majorities, can muscle much of the plan through Congress if bipartisan talks stall or collapse. They gained that power by winning control of the Senate, giving them the opportunity to merge their response to the pandemic with longstanding policies on redistribution and inequality. The ideas they are advancing include an increase in the child tax credit for low-income households and expanded paid leave for workers.

Read More [[link removed]] IRS Will Start Accepting Tax Returns Feb. 12, Later Than Usual

The Internal Revenue Service won’t start accepting 2020 individual income tax returns until Feb. 12, several weeks later than usual, as the agency implements late tax legislation.

This tax season could be unusually challenging for the IRS and for taxpayers. The IRS said Friday that it needed time to program and test its computer systems after Congress passed a relief law in late December.

“Planning for the nation’s filing season process is a massive undertaking, and IRS teams have been working nonstop,” said IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

Millions of people who didn’t get the full stimulus payments from laws passed in March and December will be able to claim the money through their 2020 tax returns. That group includes people who had children during 2020 and those who didn’t qualify for the full payments based on 2019 income but saw income drop in 2020. Others will be surprised to learn that unemployment insurance benefits are taxable.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Retail Sales Fell 0.7% In December As Covid-19 Cases Rose

U.S. consumers cut back on retail spending at the height of the holiday season as the country confronted a surge in coronavirus infections.

Retail sales, a measure of purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday. That marked the third consecutive month of declines, and November’s retail sales were revised lower to a 1.4% drop, after a stretch of growth last spring and summer.

Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC, said December retail sales were “an absolute disaster.” Still, he said that “no matter how far we fall in the short run, the assumption in financial markets is that we’ll recover once the pandemic ends.”

Read More [[link removed]] Industrial Production In U.S. Rose A Solid 1.6% in December

U.S. industrial production increased solidly in December, providing a source of strength for the U.S. economy as consumer spending and employment gains slow.

Industrial production, a measure of factory, mining and utility output, increased a seasonally adjusted 1.6% in December, the Federal Reserve said Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected a 0.5% rise.

Production was boosted by the utilities sector, as demand for heating picked up following warmer-than-usual November weather, the Fed said. Utilities output increased 6.2% in December from the previous month.

Manufacturing output, the biggest component of industrial production, climbed 0.9% in December from the previous month. Manufacturing, which has regained much of the ground lost earlier in the pandemic, saw production end the year down 2.8%.

Read More [[link removed]] Jobs Market Has Long Recovery Ahead, Says Fed’s Powell

The U.S. is a long way from a strong job market, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday, an indication that the central bank’s easy-money policies will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Friday’s U.S. jobs report—which showed the U.S. lost 140,000 payroll positions in December—pushes the central bank farther from its goals, though officials and many private economists expect the economy to rebound this year as a Covid-19 vaccine is distributed through the population. A Wall Street Journal survey of forecasters this month projected the U.S. economy will grow 4.3% this year and the unemployment rate will drop from 6.7% in December to 5.3% by the end of this year.

“Now is not the time to be talking about exit” from easy money policies, Mr. Powell said in a webcast with Princeton University, his undergraduate alma mater, adding, “The economy is far from our goals.” In addition to high unemployment, he noted, inflation isn’t clearly on a path to reaching 2% on a sustained basis, even though it might spurt higher this year.

The Fed has pushed short-term interest rates to near zero and signaled it expects to keep them there for years. It also has been buying $80 billion in Treasury securities and $40 billion in mortgages bonds, net of redemptions, every month since June and committed to continue doing that until it sees “substantial further progress” in the job market.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Unemployment Claims Rise As Coronavirus Weighs On Economy

The number of workers filing for jobless benefits posted its biggest weekly gain since the pandemic hit last March and the head of the Federal Reserve warned the job market had a long way to go before it is strong again.

Applications for unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, rose by 181,000 to 965,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, reflecting rising layoffs amid a winter surge in coronavirus cases.

The total for the week ended Jan. 9 also was the highest in nearly five months and put claims well above the roughly 800,000 a week they had averaged in recent months.

“We are a long way from maximum employment,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a webcast hosted by Princeton University, his undergraduate alma mater, an indication that the central bank’s easy-money policies will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. labor-market recovery stalled last month with the December jobs report showing the U.S. lost 140,000 payroll positions. The economic recovery’s slowdown has included weakness in household spending, though economists expect the economy to rebound later this year as a Covid-19 vaccine is distributed through the population.

Read More [[link removed]] Experiment With Special Remote-Work Visas For 'Digital Nomads'

The coronavirus pandemic has shattered the notion that you must live near where you work. It may also dispel the idea that you must live in the same country as your employer.

Attaining the expat lifestyle once meant finding a job in a distant land or bouncing around on short-term tourist visas. Now, a growing number of countries are allowing you to take your current job to a distant land, with a little bit of paperwork. A decade from now, the immigration barriers and tax deterrents to globe-trotting could be looser.

In the past year, countries hungry for more tourists and talent—from Estonia to Bermuda to Georgia—have rolled out special temporary visas (some valid for a year or more) to lure well-heeled, mobile professionals looking for an exotic escape from the routine.

Consultants who work with companies and expats say these so-called digital-nomad visa programs are an experiment in propping up commerce and tourism by tapping into the economic power of wanderlust. The pandemic’s toll on economies and international travel has spurred more nations such as Costa Rica and Croatia to consider the visas for economic growth.

Read More [[link removed]] Bank of America Sued Over EDD Unemployment Debit Card Fraud

A new federal lawsuit takes aim at Bank of America for failing to secure the unemployment debit cards of thousands of jobless Californians, part of the lax processing that has made the Employment Development Department the target of widespread fraud.

The complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleges that the bank acted negligently and proved “either unwilling or unable to stop criminals” from breaching unemployment accounts. In the process, thousands of out-of-work Californians were left unable to access badly needed unemployment funds, or in some cases penalized for alleged fraudulent charges.

“This case is pretty unique,” Brian Danitz, a partner at claimant law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, told CalMatters. “This is a $286 billion financial Goliath. The CEO makes $25 million a year, and they did not provide even basic security measures to protect EDD cardholders.”

Read More [[link removed]] Democrats Liken Newsom Recall Effort - A Legal Option In California - To Extremist 'Coup'

When is a constitutionally outlined petition campaign to remove an elected leader actually a “treasonous” effort to subvert the democratic process?

According to the California Democratic Party, when Republicans are on one side of the campaign and Gov. Gavin Newsom is on the other.

In a press conference this afternoon, the state’s largest political party denounced the germinating effort to ask voters to recall Newsom, likening it to the mob laden with white supremacists and conspiracy theorists that stormed the U.S. capitol building last week in a fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Some of the same individuals and groups who were encouraged by California Republican leaders and (who) attacked the people’s house are also engaged in a recall effort against Governor Gavin Newsom right here in California,” said party chairperson Rusty Hicks. “This recall effort, which really ought to be called ‘the California coup,’ is being led by right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.”

Read More [[link removed]] Silicon Valley's Share Of Venture Capital Expected To Drop Below 20% For The First Time This Year

The pandemic has upended the U.S. economy and it has also had a far-reaching effect on Silicon Valley, the venture capital industry and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in America.

According to PitchBook’s 2021 US Venture Capital Outlook report that was released late last month, the Bay area’s share of total VC count in the U.S. will fall below 20% for the first time in history, while other cities around the country grab larger amounts of equity capital for their home-grown innovators.

In 2020, $27.4 billion of venture capital was raised in the U.S., PitchBook reports. Of the total, 22.7% of the dealmaking occurred in the Bay Area, and 39.4% of deal value was invested in Bay area-headquartered companies.

“The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent exodus from San Francisco will only exacerbate this trend,” said PitchBook’s analyst Kyle Stanford. He notes that Silicon Valley’s share of venture capital deal count in the U.S. has fallen every year since 2006. The forces driving the continued shift: the rise of remote work during the pandemic, the high cost of living in the Valley, and the fact it’s become more expensive to finance start-ups in the Bay area.

Read More [[link removed]] California Throws Open COVID Vaccines To Anyone 65 And Older

California is opening COVID-19 vaccines to all residents 65 and older — an announcement that comes amid a slower-than-expected vaccination rollout and growing frustration among seniors most vulnerable to the virus.

State health officials had previously declared that California would focus on vaccinating health workers and nursing home residents, with seniors 75 and older and certain essential workers to follow. But people over age 65 make up the majority of hospitalizations and nearly three-quarters of the COVID-19 deaths.

“With our hospitals crowded and ICUs full, we need to focus on vaccinating Californians who are at highest risk of becoming hospitalized to alleviate stress on our health care facilities,” Dr. Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement.

Read More [[link removed]] Confused About the Vaccine Rollout? You’re Not Alone

ov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement on Wednesday seemed sweeping: California would open up eligibility for a coronavirus vaccine to anyone 65 or older, effectively abandoning a rollout plan that was meant to ensure that the most vulnerable would be first in line.

A day later, residents of the vast and varied state were trying to navigate what many described as vaccination chaos.

Some counties shifted gears immediately, like Orange County, which said anyone 65 or older could book an appointment at the vaccination site it opened this week at Disneyland. But the scheduling website was quickly overwhelmed, making scheduling a shot seem like trying to get tickets to a Taylor Swift (or insert your favorite artist here) concert.

Neighboring Los Angeles County, however, stuck with its strict priority rules, and officials have said that vaccine doses there would continue to be available only to health care workers, regardless of the governor’s announcement.

Read More [[link removed]] Despite Pandemic Crisis, Financial Optimism "Uncharacteristically High:" Survey

Despite an intensifying job crisis nationwide, many say they remain optimistic their finances will take a turn for the better this year, according to a new survey.

Forty-four percent of Americans said in December that they were confident not only that they wouldn’t lose income this year, but that they’d be better off financially in 2021 than they were last year, according to a Bankrate national survey of over 1,000 people.

“The level of optimism is surprisingly, uncharacteristically high,” said Bankrate chief economist Greg McBride. “It was kind of counterintuitive given the state of the economy and the level of uncertainty that’s ahead.”

In this past year, the country shed nearly 10 million jobs, and last week 965,000 first-timers filed for unemployment — the highest number since August. In California, economic recovery has been particularly slow as the state struggles to make up for its 8.2 percent unemployment rate, which exceeds the national rate of 6.7.

Highlighting the economic challenges millions are facing, six out of 10 people surveyed said they couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency expense if it arose.

Read More [[link removed]] Just When They Need It Most, 800 Compton Residents Are About To Get Free Money

For five years, Georgia Horton had worked to rebuild her life, no easy task for a Black woman who spent years in prison.

She found an apartment in Compton. She started working as a motivational speaker and evangelist. She wrote a book. She found her home church. But, in just one day, it almost all fell apart again.

In December, Horton found herself on the verge of eviction. She was hopelessly behind on her rent, her income gutted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The odd jobs she was doing to make up for lost speaking gigs, particularly at shuttered prisons, detention facilities and community centers, were no longer cutting it.

If not for an out-of-the-blue invitation to join the “Compton Pledge” — among the largest and most ambitious guaranteed income experiments in the U.S. to date — Horton probably would’ve ended up on the streets.

“It really made me able to breathe again,” she said. “To reset and say, ‘OK, now we can, you know, get back on track.’ And try to think not just what to do during the pandemic, but beyond the pandemic.”

Read More [[link removed]] Hounded by Wildfires, Californians Rethink Their Willingness To Rebuild

The day Paradise burned, Aaron Singer was a skeptic. Then he saw the flames in his rearview mirror.

This was November 2018, and the Camp Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California history, was making swift and smoky headway through the Sierra Nevada foothills. It took fewer than four hours to rip through this town of 26,000 residents, reducing schools, businesses, and 11,000 homes into piles of smoldering ash. When Mr. Singer got the evacuation order, he believed it was another false alarm. But he peeled out of his driveway as flames licked his yard, making it out of town with minutes to spare.

Paradise was lost. Eighty-five people died, and more than 90 percent of its population was driven out. Two years later, about 4,000 residents have returned to its scorched earth to lay new foundations and test fate once again. Mr. Singer, who has spent the past 48 months preparing to rebuild his home, is among them.

Now he is having second thoughts.

Read More [[link removed]] Some Uber, Lyft Drivers Sue Over California Ballot Measure

Drivers for app-based ride-hailing and delivery services filed a lawsuit Tuesday to overturn a California ballot initiative that makes them independent contractors instead of employees eligible for benefits and job protections.

The lawsuit filed with the California Supreme Court said Proposition 22 is unconstitutional because it limits the power of the Legislature to grant workers the right to organize and excludes drivers from being eligible for workers’ compensation.

The measure, which was passed in November with 58% support, was the most expensive in state history with Uber, Lyft and other services pouring $200 million in support of it. Labor unions, who joined drivers in the lawsuit, spent about $20 million to challenge it.

“Prop. 22 doesn’t just fail our state rideshare drivers, it fails the basic test of following our state constitution,” said Bob Schoonover of the Service Employees International Union. “The law as written by Uber and Lyft denies drivers rights under the law in California and makes it nearly impossible for lawmakers to fix these problems.”

Drivers bringing the lawsuit have several hurdles to clear, but their arguments are compelling, said Mary-Beth Moylan, associate dean of McGeorge Law School in Sacramento.

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change California Blackouts Said Caused by Poor Planning, Insufficient Natural Gas Supply

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Energy Commission (CEC) in the report called for expanded oversight to cope with “accelerating climate change demands” to avoid blackouts similar to those on Aug. 14-15.

The agencies acknowledged a “shared responsibility” for ordering the outages in response to extreme weather conditions, a lack of adequate resources, and poor planning and marketing practices. The three agencies said “there is more to do” to prepare for summer electricity loads, and for the longer-term future.

“It is our top priority to ensure we have the demand- and supply-side resources needed to maintain reliability, and this [report] demonstrates how we will do it and continue to decarbonize the grid,” said CPUC President Marybel Batjer.

Read More [[link removed]] Governor Gavin Newsom's New Budget Plan Draws Criticism From Oil Industry

Climate change priorities spelled out in Governor Gavin Newsom's new budget plan has drawn criticism as it proposes $4.8 million to hire 26 oil regulators to try and tighten oversight.

For Kern County's oil industry local lawmakers and several oil industry leaders are now saying the proposal is counterproductive and economically harmful. The California Independent Petroleum Association held a virtual press conference this week where Assemblymember Vince Fong spoke of the importance of California's oil production.

"We all agree that we all need energy and oil independence in our state yet the governor's actions are doing the exact opposite. It's going to cause us to import more oil from foreign countries, shipping oil across thousands of miles of ocean, and we want California energy for, produced by Californians."

The effort to get Newsom to change his proposal is gaining bipartisan support as several Democratic lawmakers also took part in the conference and agreed with Fong.

Read More [[link removed]] Politicians Join Industry's Campaign Against Phasing Out California's Oil Production

California's petroleum industry kicked off a public campaign Wednesday aimed at fending off efforts in Sacramento to scale back in-state oil and natural gas production.

A bipartisan coalition of mostly Central Valley lawmakers joined oilfield workers at an industry-hosted event that presented a list of reasons for permitting oil and natural gas production instead of moving forward with Gov. Gavin Newsom's calls to phase it out.

The effort spearheaded by the California Independent Petroleum Association came as several oil-related initiatives are expected to be put forward soon by the Newsom administration or the state Legislature.

Arguments made Wednesday in favor of preserving and even supporting the industry were summarized in a statement atop a petition, signed by almost 3,000 mostly Central Valley supporters, that CIPA plans to present to the governor:

"Governor Newsom, we urge you to protect quality careers and vital tax funding while ensuring Californians have access to affordable and reliable energy," the petition reads. "By prioritizing locally produced energy that is generated under the toughest environmental protections on the planet, you can maintain California’s climate leadership and protect our economy."

Read More [[link removed]] Progressives Gear Up For Broad New Push On Climate Action

A coalition of progressive groups say they are organizing a sweeping network to mobilize around climate change, racial and environmental justice, making a new unified push as President-elect Joe Biden is days away from taking office with Democrats set to control both the House and the Senate.

The group, the Green New Deal Network, plans to invest in partner organizations in 20 key states to mobilize grassroots power to pressure elected officials to support their goals; introduce Green New Deal-related legislation at the state and local level, spearhead federal legislation that would implement parts of the Green New Deal agenda, and to pressure the incoming Biden administration to enact a series of executive actions related to climate, jobs and justice.

"Every day [SEIU members] confront the crisis of climate, as well as environmental racism and economic inequality, so the Green New Deal is not something that is abstract to them," said Rocio Sáenz, the executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union. "For our members the Green New Deal means clear air, clean water, safe communities, good jobs and a growing economy. So this, for us, is why we are part of this network. What we see, especially now more than ever, is that we cannot think about these issues in siloes."

Read More [[link removed]] Introducing “The Slick California”: How The Oil And Gas Industry Influences Climate Policy In The Golden State

California, the most populated state in the U.S. and the fifth-largest economy in the world, is critical to the nation’s efforts to stop the acceleration of global warming. The state has been on the frontier of climate solutions, serving as a laboratory where policymakers wrestle with environmental and commercial interests. It is also a showcase for some of the most extreme impacts of climate change.

The 2020 wildfire season was California’s most destructive in modern times with more than four million acres burned, while 2018 was the deadliest, claiming the lives of nearly 100 civilians and firefighters. Climate change has redefined seasons in California, and wildfire is now a year-round threat in a state where a quarter of the population lives in high-fire-risk areas. California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment estimates that the state’s burn areas will grow another 77% by the end of the century.

Although other climate change impacts in the state have not yet captured the public imagination like the visceral terror of raging wildfire, the threats to California’s populace, environment and economy are manifold and profound. A Nature Climate Change study says that warming will cause a 25% to 100% increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events in California — what scientists call “precipitation whiplash,” in which drought conditions alternate with intensely rainy winters that can cause devastating flooding.

Read More [[link removed]] 2021 Outlook: Greening Natural Gas While Planning For Service Reliability

The U.S. electric sector’s transition to cleaner generation has been led by states for the past four years, but 2021 is poised to offer stronger actions from the federal level. Under President-elect Joe Biden and a Democrat-led Congress, which will likely lead to the proliferation of battery storage and lower-carbon natural gas generation, among other energy developments, experts say.

Groups that are heavily invested in natural gas, such as the Electric Power Supply Association, a merchant generation trade group, consider the resource to be a great investment in 2021. EPSA members are considering natural gas projects with lower emissions profiles in addition to other technologies such as lithium-ion battery storage.

By prioritizing pilots that prove out low emissions natural gas concepts, including the natural gas sector is poised to secure continued investments and long-term contracts in the U.S., experts say.

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development Biden's Debt Forgiveness Plan Would Help Millions Of California Students

Millions of Californians could get one of the biggest transfers of money in this country’s history as lawmakers and the incoming president duel over competing plans to rid the nation of ten of billions of dollars in student debt.

If President-elect Joe Biden follows through with his campaign promise to forgive $10,000 in federal student debt, as many as 1.3 million Californians could see the balance on their federal college loans totally wiped out.

The plan, which would make good on a once fringe progressive goal of student forgiveness that’s gone mainstream in the past five years, would benefit a total of roughly 3.9 million Californians who combined owe $140 billion in federal loans used to pay for college.

But a chorus of Congressional Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and California U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, wants Biden to expunge up to $50,000 in federal student debt. Debt cancellation of $50,000 would clear the federal student debts of far more Californians ­— between 2.9 and 3.3 million people, according to a CalMatters analysis of U.S. Department of Education data.

Read More [[link removed]?] Newsom Calls Textbooks "Racket," Proposes Money To Create Free Ones

The price of college textbooks is often top of mind for college students, for understandable reasons, but also the governor, apparently.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called textbooks a “racket” during his press conference unveiling his budget proposal last week, saying he was “committed” to addressing the “usurious costs associated with textbooks.” “And so we’re going to do more this year… on open source textbooks,” he said. The typical full-time college student in California spends $800 on textbooks and related materials annually.

As part of Newsom’s record-breaking $227 billion spending plan, the governor wants to commit $15 million to create free alternatives to commercial textbooks — a $3.2 billion industry — that colleges and universities can adopt for entire majors. These textbooks, called open-educational resources, are typically online and are some combination of currently available instructional content and new learning materials that professors develop.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Coronavirus Relief May Shortchange Bay Area Landlords, Renters

With U.S. rental assistance on the horizon for struggling landlords and tenants, Bay Area housing advocates say the region could be shortchanged in a federal distribution that favors population more than costs and number of renters.

Congress in December earmarked $25 billion for direct aid to renters and landlords, with states receiving aid based on population, and not on a more favorable formula for the high cost Bay Area that would take into account the number of renters or estimated rent owed.

Bay Area housing advocates say the region’s large percentage of renters and high rents could mean federal aid could cover less debt here than in other, low-cost regions. “It’s clearly inadequate,” said Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. But, he added, “we got our foot in the door.’

But experts are hopeful that a new, Democratically-held U.S. Senate will pass a larger aid package to cover more of the tenant debt piled up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The law calls for the emergency distribution to go to states and municipalities by the end of January. Most of the relief will be paid directly to landlords and utility providers. Low income households making less than half of their region’s median income will receive priority, and renters making more than 80 percent of the median income will be ineligible.

Read More [[link removed]] How One California City Is Working To Stop Homelessness – Before It Happens

When the pandemic hit, Marquisse Moore lost his job, and it didn't take long before he lost his home, too.

He had been working as a forklift driver at a tortilla factory before being laid off in early April. New jobs were hard to find.

When he realized he wouldn’t be able to continue paying rent on his Mountain View apartment, he told his landlord he would be moving out. For the next six months, he and his six-year-old daughter bounced between family and friends' couches. Sometimes, he slept in his car.

“I made sure my daughter always had a roof over her head, even if I didn't,” he said. “It was a very big struggle.”

On a leap of faith, he applied to a two-bedroom apartment in Oakland’s Fruitvale District in December. And to his surprise, the landlord was interested in renting to him even though he wasn't working yet.

Moore had just been offered a job at Alameda Health Systems, working in its COVID-19 ward. But there was still another problem: he couldn't afford the security deposit and first month’s rent.

Read More [[link removed]] Is Amazon’s $2 Billion Affordable Housing Injection Enough?

Amazon is throwing $2 billion at the housing crisis in Seattle with its Housing Equity Fund to preserve and create over 20,000 affordable housing units. Through this Fund, Amazon will offer below-market loans and grants to housing partners, public agencies, and minority-led organizations to help them build a more inclusive solution to the affordable housing crisis, which disproportionately affects communities of color. Are they actually trying to fix the huge need for middle- and low-income housing and combat homelessness, or is this extra financial commitment merely a selling point for future employee recruitment?

The Breakdown You Need To Know: Let’s remember the underlying reality of these large housing pledges is that companies like Amazon often play a major role in gentrification and displacement of local communities, CultureBanx reported. Amazon plans to invest in Washington state’s Puget Sound region that encompasses Seattle, as well as Arlington, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee where Amazon has opened fast-growing offices. The company employs more than 75,000 people in the Puget Sound region alone thanks to its headquarters in the state. Seattle and King County, which is the area where Amazon is located faces a severe lack of affordable housing and a homelessness crisis. A point-in-time in 2020 survey tallied more than 11,000 homeless people in King County.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion Put Students First - Return $12.5 Billion In Deferrals To Schools

The Legislative Analyst Office recently reported a $26 billion windfall. And, some are suggesting California should restore across-the-board cuts. But politicians must recognize solutions embedded in the June budget did not embody shared sacrifice – kids and teachers took a disproportionate hit.

June revenues were deliberately pessimistic. As a result, the Legislature could low-ball the Proposition 98 minimum school funding guarantee. In addition, the state relied heavily on payment deferrals to schools to close the budget gap. $12.5 billion in IOUs were established requiring schools to wait until next year to get paid what they are owed today.

IOUs were used to avoid deeper cuts in non-school accounts and avoid unpopular votes to suspend Prop. 98. School accounts were again used as an ATM machine for the rest of the state. With a simple majority required to pass the budget, California politicians failed to muster the courage to keep children and teachers from harm’s way from deeper cuts under the illusion that deferrals have no consequences.

Read More [[link removed]] Big Business’s Sharp Left Turn

Corporate America took a big step this week, moving from captives of wokeness to active accomplices. The legal and political consequences may prove profound.

Big Business over the past four years has increasingly signed up for leftist politics. Some of this was “wokewashing,” peddling causes or figures for brand benefit—think Nike’s Colin Kaepernick commercial or Lacoste’s replacement of its crocodile logo with endangered species. Some was spinelessness, caving in to the liberal mob—think Goldman Sachs’s refusal to finance fossil-fuel projects. Some was strategic— Twitter and Facebook attempting to ward off regulation with ever-changing policies on “misinformation.”

But the events of last week—the assault on the Capitol and the Democratic Senate takeover—inspired corporate America to take on a new role. Business titans are positioning themselves as arbiters of political speech and activity—by withholding essential services to conservative individuals, companies and groups. They’ve turned themselves into political entities, raising constitutional and antitrust questions.

Read More [[link removed]] Climate Change Remains The Greatest Crisis Of Our Crisis-Filled Era

As the nation deals with the tragic drama of President Trump’s final days in office, and the world reels under a now-year-long assault by a virus, the Earth continues to evolve into a dangerously inhospitable environment. And it is our collective fault.

This past year was, in essence, in a statistical tie with 2016 for the hottest on record, with temperatures driven upward by the warming effects of human activities that spew carbon and other greenhouse compounds into the atmosphere.

Temperatures breached 100 degrees in, of all places, Siberia, setting a record for north of the Arctic Circle. Climate change-driven wildfires scorched the Earth’s surface from Australia to the American West — the August Complex fire in Northern California became the first in the state to burn more than 1 million acres — to the Arctic, all adding yet more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Read More [[link removed]] How Will A Declining Population Impact California?

In 2020, with COVID-19 driving all that U-Haul traffic out of the Bay Area, California’s population – currently hovering at just below 40 million people – probably went down. Even Elon Musk apparently moved to Texas.

When was the last time this happened?

The answer is never.

In 170 years since statehood, California’s population has always gone up. Even during the Great Depression, the state added population. Since 1940, it’s grown, on average, by a half-million people per year. Suddenly, since 2017, that ever-increasing population growth has come to a crashing halt.

Why? California has been losing population to other states for many years and more than made up for it with international immigration and natural increase. But immigration has tailed off, for a variety of reasons. And natural increase, which was in turn driven by high fertility rates among immigrants, has also tailed off, in large part because what might be called the “immigrant Baby Boom” of the ‘70s through the ‘90s is long since over. And now all those Bay Area U-Hauls are headed to Austin.

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