Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News Seeking To Preserve Proposition 13

Business groups and taxpayer advocates are urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to protect California’s Proposition 13 property tax cap approved by voters more than 40 years ago.

The “Fight for Prop. 13” coalition, girding for a fight over a ballot measure that would raise property taxes on businesses, submitted a final batch of petitions to the governor’s office on Wednesday, .

Rob Lapsley, of the California Business Roundtable: “Prop. 13 is one of the last protections that we have in the state of California against higher housing, gasoline, milk and daycare costs.”

Fullerton Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, former Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Peter Kelly, former chair of the California Democratic Party, participated in the event.

Read More [[link removed]] POLITICO California Playbook, January 8, 2020

THE FIGHT IS ON: The business coalition opposing a proposed “split roll” ballot measure to revise Prop. 13 says it will deliver petitions with nearly 200,000 signatures Wednesday to Newsom in an effort to showcase what it says is a wide range of support from California groups. The move heralds the official kickoff of what’s sure to be a pricey battle between business and labor over an initiative that would lift Prop 13 tax caps for commercial and industrial properties.

Among those who will join the Fight for Prop. 13 effort at a state Capitol press conference are NAACP CA president Alice Huffman, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce head Julian Canete, Asian Chamber of Commerce public policy head David Nelson and California Business Roundtable president Rob Lapsley. The petitions are the result of what the group calls a months-long educational effort to oppose the initiative, which opponents argue would adversely affect small business and potentially thousands of jobs in California.

Read More [[link removed]] Who's Afraid Of Rent Control?

In 1979, Nick Licata was 31 years old and running for a seat on the Seattle City Council — his first run, which he would lose. He held a press conference at the home of Viola Crawford, an elderly West Seattle woman living on a fixed monthly income of $250. Her rent had recently jumped to $195 from $105. “We’re under almost a housing crisis where people who are faced with an astronomical rent increase have no place to go,” Licata said. He was arguing for some form of rent control.

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A strong coalition of housing justice advocates and organized tenants will need to come together if any version of rent control is to pass in Washington; but California’s experience suggests that other factors could come into play, too. That state’s recent measure was supported, surprisingly, by the California Business Roundtable. Perhaps, given a choice as to who should be held responsible for the housing crisis and whose pocketbook should take the hit, the business lobby is pleased to throw the landlord lobby under the bus. A similar dynamic may have played out here in Washington last year as the Legislature debated eviction protections, and Amazon and other “head tax” opponents weighed in with public support. Significantly, the California negotiations also played out against the background of one failed rent control initiative and the threat of another, stronger one in 2020.

Read More [[link removed]] Can $500 A Month Change A City? Stockton Tests Universal Basic Income

What could you do with an extra $500 a month? Lorrine Paradela got a better night’s sleep.

The 45-year-old single mother is one of the 125 Stockton residents receiving monthly cash disbursements as part of an attention-grabbing experiment on guaranteed income.

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Critics argue that expanding universal basic income on a broad scale would be impossibly expensive and counterproductive.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which represents the state’s largest employers, called it a “complete distraction” from finding solutions to lower California’s cost of living and training a workforce for jobs that will be available in the future. His group conducted focus groups on anti-poverty programs two years ago and found many potential recipients of a guaranteed income resisted the idea because working gave them a sense of purpose and self-worth.

Organized labor has been alarmed as tech executives embrace the concept. Steve Smith of the California Labor Federation said unions worry that the tech industry is using guaranteed income as a “Trojan horse” to accelerate a transition to automation that is not nearly as inevitable as it portrays.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation U.S. Private Sector Added 202,000 Jobs In December

The nonfarm private sector in the U.S. added 202,000 jobs in December, topping economists’ expectations.

Most of the growth was at medium- and small-sized businesses, according to the ADP National Employment Report. Medium-sized businesses, or those with between 50 and 499 employees, added 88,000 jobs, and small-sized businesses, or those with 49 employees or fewer, added 69,000.

Large businesses, or those with at least 500 employees, added 45,000 employees.

Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal were expecting the nonfarm private sector to add 150,000 jobs in December.

Read More [[link removed]] As Jobs Cap 10 Years Of Gains, Women Are Workforce Majority

Women overtook men to hold the majority of U.S. jobs for the first time in a decade, while employers added positions for a record 10th straight year, pointing to a growing and dynamic economy heading into 2020.

The number of women on nonfarm payrolls exceeded men in December for the first time since mid-2010, the Labor Department said Friday. Women held 50.04% of jobs last month, surpassing men on payrolls by 109,000.

“Increasingly, the fortunes of women in the labor market will determine the overall outcomes of the labor market because they will be the predominant share,” said Marianne Wanamaker, a labor economist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and former adviser to President Trump.

Overall, the economy added a seasonally adjusted 145,000 jobs last month, and unemployment stayed at a 50-year low of 3.5%. In one dark spot, wages advanced 2.9% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain since July 2018. Stock-market indexes finished lower Friday after rising earlier in the day.

Read More [[link removed]] China To Send Chief Trade Negotiator To U.S. To Sign Phase-One Deal

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s chief trade negotiator will travel to Washington early next week to sign a phase-one trade deal with the U.S., China’s Commerce Ministry said Thursday, the first official confirmation by Beijing on the signing of an agreement that could help ease bilateral tensions.

The Chinese delegation, to be led by Vice Premier Liu He, will visit Washington from Monday to Wednesday, Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said at a weekly briefing.

Washington and Beijing said on Dec. 13 that the two sides had reached a first-stage deal, under which China would greatly increase its purchases of U.S. farm goods and other products, further open its financial sector, pledge not to devalue the Chinese yuan to help the country’s exporters and better protect American intellectual property.

Read More [[link removed]] Fed's Williams Says World Will Be Dealing With Low Interest Rates For A Long Time

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said Thursday low interest rates are likely to be a persistent issue for some time to come, which will create challenges for how central banks operate.

Mr. Williams, whose comments came from the text of remarks to be given in London, didn’t comment about the outlook for short-term rates and the economy. Mr. Williams is also vice chairman of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, which is due to meet at the end of the month in a gathering that is almost certain to leave the overnight federal-funds rate target range unchanged at between 1.50% and 1.75%.

In his remarks, Mr. Williams affirmed what he saw as the strong value of the central bank’s inflation targeting system, even as the Fed has consistently failed to achieve its 2% goal since adopting it in 2012.

Read More [[link removed]] Chamber Of Commerce Urges Congress To Fight California's Regulatory Push

The leader of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the powerful business group will fight to reverse worker-classification, privacy and other policies being pushed in California and by some Democratic candidates for president.

“We will lead the opposition to policies that undermine the job creators, that penalize the innovators and that target the wealth-creators,” Chief Executive Tom Donohue said Thursday in his annual State of American Business speech.

While he said his group, one of the highest-spending lobbying bodies in Washington and a major advocate for pro-business policies, will not engage “directly in presidential politics” and could fault both parties, he criticized progressive ideas such as “Medicare for All,” redistributive taxation, corporate breakups and policies that would give part-time workers greater benefits from their employers.

Read More [[link removed]] US Chamber Of Commerce: 2020 State of American Business Address: A Year of Meaningful Action

For those of you who have been to this event before, you may have come expecting lists—lists of economic indicators, lists of accomplishments and priorities, and checklists for the coming year. And believe me, the Chamber has lists! But you’re not going to hear them today.

Because at the outset of this momentous year—2020—the State of American Business is better told in broader strokes, bigger ideas, and real stories of women and men who are leading, growing, and innovating in a unique period of challenge, opportunity, and, yes, uncertainty.

We’ve asked some of them to join us today ... because they are the ones who are out there driving the economy while also dealing with many of the 300 issues that the U.S. Chamber works on every day.

Read More [[link removed]] Gov. Gavin Newsom's Budget Envisions An Activist Agenda But Limits On Higher Spending

For the seventh time in eight years, California’s government is poised to collect a sizable cash surplus under projections in the $222.2-billion state budget Gov. Gavin Newsom submitted to the Legislature on Friday — a remarkable streak even in the face of steadily higher spending, most notably on K-12 education and healthcare for low-income residents.

Those programs would remain the focus of government growth under the plan unveiled by Newsom. Elsewhere, he urged lawmakers to limit their requests for more spending in light of expectations that the state and national economies will grow more slowly in the immediate future.

But the budget crafted by Newsom is hardly cautious. Although it seeks limited growth in long-term commitments, the governor proposes to expand state government’s reach into policy areas that have historically been the purview of local and federal governments. Those include new efforts to combat a worsening homelessness crisis, lower the cost of prescription drugs and better protect the rights of California consumers.

Read More [[link removed]] What To Expect From California’s Economy In 2020

2020 is here. The stock market is on a high, unemployment is low and the economy is humming along.

UCLA’s Anderson School Forecast suggests that could slow through the new year but California could slow less than the nation as a whole.

"It looks good going into 2020, we're expecting decent economic growth...between 1.5 and 2 percent, and we expect California to grow a little faster than that," said Jerry Nickelsburg, forecast director with the UCLA Anderson School.

Read More [[link removed]] California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?

Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of “needles and poop” that have become a common sight on the city’s sidewalks.

Today, a year after losing the race, Ms. Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her family’s savings and future.

Read More [[link removed]] California Court Says Truckers Exempt From 'Gig Worker' Law

California’s new “gig worker” law does not apply to independent truck drivers because they are subject to federal statute, a Los Angeles judge ruled, handing a victory to one industry that is challenging a state effort to clamp down on labor abuses.

The law, known as AB5 and which took effect on Jan. 1, makes it tougher for companies to classify workers as contractors rather than employees, a classification that exempts them from paying for overtime, healthcare and workers’ compensation.

Truckers have mounted the strongest defense against AB5, which is best known for striking at the heart of high-profile “gig economy” businesses like Uber Technologies and Postmates Inc, which depend on freelance workers to provide low-cost transportation and deliveries.

Read More [[link removed]] California Is Losing Young People And Texas Is Getting More Of Them

America’s most populous state is losing its young people.

California’s youth population fell by more than 400,000 over the past decade to 8.9 million, largely due to a decline in immigrant inflows and a falling birth rate, according to the latest Census data. The population grew for all the state’s older age-groups, highlighting the demographic challenge of an aging workforce in the coming generations.

The decline in young people is a common trend in the U.S., where 30 states recorded a drop in the under-18 age bracket between 2010 and 2019, according to recently released data.

Chalk up the decline in California primarily to people having fewer babies, said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, a research group. The state’s birth rate is at the lowest in history. Other experts suggest falling foreign immigration and more out-migration to other states also are hurting California.

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change California Climate Budget To Include $1 Billion Green Loan Fund

Contending that California needs to better encourage small players with ideas to address the climate crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to include a $1 billion revolving loan program in his new budget Friday to seed recycling, low-carbon transportation and climate-smart agriculture projects, according to a summary document obtained by CalMatters.

The Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund, which would grow over four years, would offer low-interest lending to small businesses and organizations that have green ideas but may not be established or connected enough to compete for venture capital funding.

“California is the world capital of innovation,” Newsom said in a statement. “But as we grow, we must demand that the benefits of this growth be widely shared by workers and small businesses — not just those with access to huge amounts of capital. This fund aims to level the playing field as we build a greener, cleaner economy.”

Read More [[link removed]] California's 'Hydrogen Highway' Never Happened. Could 2020 Change That?

California has been dreaming of a clean, modern hydrogen highway since 2004, when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered preparations for a traffic jam of zero-emission, hydrogen-fueled cars, buses and trucks.

That revolution, part of the battle against climate change, never materialized. The technology remains expensive and hasn’t gained wide traction, ceding the green-transportation crown to battery-powered electric vehicles, which are more widely available and support an ever-growing recharging network.

But with successful pilot projects using hydrogen buses and freight trucks, and car manufacturers preparing to expand model options in the tiny consumer car market, proponents say this may be the year when the “fuel of the future” finally arrives.

Read More [[link removed]] California's Renewable Energy Targets Slashed Carbon Pollution--Now There's A Proposal To Pause Them

California’s ambitious renewable energy targets helped drive a substantial drop in greenhouse gas pollution that propelled the state past its 2020 climate change goals early, according to a non-partisan analysis released this week. Yet one California lawmaker confirmed Tuesday he wants to put a stop to the mandate, for now.

Most of the carbon pollution that California scrubbed from its economy over the past ten years disappeared from the state’s electricity sector. That’s largely because of a shift toward renewable electricity sources like wind and solar and a departure from coal. The question is to what extent the state’s climate efforts are driving that shift.

The report, published this week, comes from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which assesses state policy and advises California’s Legislature. Ross Brown, primary analyst on the report, dug through academic studies and government data to lead an investigation into just how effective state policies are at greening the grid.

Read More [[link removed]] Can We Tackle Climate Change And Economic Inequality?

The news for both climate change and economic inequality has been undeniably dire. In December the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card concluded that a critical cooling system around the North Pole may be breaking down, just the latest ominous survey about the existential threat of the climate crisis. On the economic front, a recent report by the Brookings Institution showed that 44 percent of American workers are stuck in low-wage jobs paying a median of $18,000 per year.

Addressing one of these crises is a monumental challenge for one nation; tackling both at once might appear to be insurmountable. But there are lawmakers, academics, and leaders in business and labor who believe that not only should the U.S. deal with both crises simultaneously, it must and it can. Indeed, a growing body of research indicates that many of the solutions to address the climate crisis and economic inequality are the same.

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development Teachers Who Must Pay Their Subs While On Extended Leave May Get Relief

A California state lawmaker is moving to repeal a 40-year-old law requiring public school teachers on extended sick leave to pay for their own substitute teachers.

KQED first reported on the state law last spring, after a San Francisco Unified school community created a GoFundMe account to help one of their teachers who was battling cancer. That teacher had to pay the cost of her own substitute — amounting to nearly half of her paycheck — while she underwent extended treatment. After the story published, more California public school teachers came forward to describe similar hardships.

Democratic State Sen. Connie Leyva of Chino, chair of the education committee, then took up the issue, but said action would need to wait until this session. Now she’s introduced Senate Bill 796, which would entitle school employees to continue to receive full pay while on extended sick leave.

Read More [[link removed]] New Efforts To Make School Spending In California More Transparent

Though barely a week old, 2020 is shaping up to be the year that policy makers and legislators force school districts to be more accountable for how they spend money they receive from the state’s funding formula. It could produce the first significant tightening of rules under the Local Control Funding Formula since former Gov. Jerry Brown persuaded the Legislature to pass the landmark legislation in 2013.

The officials are responding to public criticism, seconded by a state audit, that lawmakers and parents often can’t determine how money targeted for high-needs students — English learners, low-income, foster and homeless youths — is being spent.

On Wednesday, the State Board of Education completed a year-long effort to revise the key document that districts must complete under the funding formula law, called the Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP. In addition, a key legislator who’s been a frequent critic of the law introduced two bills would impose more stringent spending and reporting requirements on districts.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing How To Restore The California Dream

California has become the national poster child for high housing costs and for homelessness. Although no single lawmaker or regulator is to blame for California’s housing crisis, a complex array of regulatory obstacles enacted by politicians at various levels of government and pushed by special interests over decades have made California ill-equipped to accommodate the state’s growth. The effect has been a supply of housing that does not keep up with demand, resulting in skyrocketing housing costs, strained budgets, homelessness, and an outflow of people from the Golden State.

It is for these reasons that the Independent Institute has given the ninth California Golden Fleece® Award to California state and local politicians, government planners, regulators, and activists for inept housing policies. The award is given quarterly to California state or local agencies or government projects that swindle taxpayers or break the public trust.

Read More [[link removed]] Newsom Claims Homelessness Will Be His Top Priority In 2020

“A year from now nothing will have changed,” said one cynical yet possibly accurate response to the tweet announcing that homelessness will be Gov. Gavin Newsom’s top priority in 2020.

The California governor on Wednesday proposed spending more than $1.4 billion on efforts to combat homelessness—specifically, $750 million in taxpayer money to help move shelterless people into supportive housing and $700 million to care for the health needs to people living on the streets.

He also signed an executive order for cities and counties to find vacant properties—which, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, would include “excess state land that has been set aside for affordable-housing development, lots next to highways and state roads, decommissioned hospitals and health care centers, and fairgrounds”—on which to build emergency shelters.

Read More [[link removed]] California's Housing Crisis Is Government's Fault, Group Says With 'Golden Fleece' Award

California’s sky high housing prices and rents have led the Independent Institute to bestow its latest “Golden Fleece Award” on “the state and local politicians, government planners and regulators, and anti-development activists who obstruct new housing.”

Don’t pop the champagne just yet.

It’s a dubious honor, one the right-leaning California think tank uses to point out examples of government waste, fraud and abuse.

Previous recipients of the “award” include Cal Fire, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Department of Water Resources.

Senior Institute Fellow Lawrence J. McQuillan, whose analysis led to the Institute’s decision to award, calls housing a “government-created crisis” that can only be solved by “market-based solutions and fewer entrepreneurial impediments from lawmakers and regulators.”

Read More [[link removed]] UCLA Prof: 'We Need To Seriously Question The Ideal Of Private Homeowership'

A University of California-Los Angeles professor made her views on climate change public in a recent op-ed, questioning American private homeownership in response to climate change, particularly California’s forest fires.

Professor Kian Goah, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA, whose expertise includes urban ecological design, spatial politics, and social mobilization in the issues of climate change and global urbanization, argued in an op-ed for The Nation that what makes the California forest fires even worse is urban planning. Its subtitle reads, "if we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership."

“Yes, climate change intensifies the fires—but the ways in which we plan and develop our cities makes them even more destructive. The growth of urban regions in the second half of the 20th century has been dominated by economic development, aspirations of homeownership, and belief in the importance of private property,” she writes.

Read More [[link removed]] Homeless Women Who Took Over California Home Gain Support

Some California lawmakers said they support a group of homeless women who have been illegally living in a vacant three-bedroom house since November, partly to protest real estate speculators who drive up housing costs in the pricey San Francisco Bay Area.

Moms 4 Housing, a collective recently formed to support the Oakland women, interrupted a press conference on legislation to boost housing construction Tuesday at City Hall, shouting “affordable housing now.”

The women took over the home after they said they were unable to find permanent housing in the Bay Area, where high-paying tech jobs have exacerbated income inequality and a housing shortage. They also say they’re protesting real estate developers who snap up distressed homes, then leave them empty.

Read More [[link removed]] California Woman Transforms Abandoned Lot Of Land Into Sanctuary For Homeless Women

California’s housing crisis is hitting especially lower-income communities harder than ever, as rent prices continue to rise stemming from the endless injections of big-tech money into areas like San Francisco and Oakland.

According to The Guardian, the number of homeless encampments within the city of Oakland outnumbers the square kilometers that make up that city—but at the corner of 37th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, this community of housed and unhoused citizens are creating reasons for people to change their attitudes toward the often embattled encampments.

“37MLK” was just a vacant Oakland lot of overgrown weeds squared away by tattered chain link fencing in the northwest part of town where Stefani Echeverría-Fenn, a local resident, walked on her way to work.

Read More [[link removed]] Unintended Consequences: How 'Green' Regulations Exacerbate The Housing Crisis

Though the word “crisis” has become a ubiquitous descriptor, few would call it hyperbole when applied to California’s housing market.

The numbers tell a panicked tale. The state’s median home price now exceeds $600,000, double the national rate. Forty-one percent of residents surpass the threshold of “cost-burdened,” defined as spending 30% or more of one’s income to keep a roof over their head.

In the Bay Area, only one unit of new housing is being built for every five new jobs. When McKinsey & Co. examined California’s needs three years ago, it estimated the state would require 3.5 million new units by the mid-2020s. The revised reality: It will likely take until 2050 to reach that figure.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion Winnowing Legislative Grain From Chaff

During the pre-industrial era, crops of wheat were planted, cultivated, harvested and processed by hand.

The latter included “winnowing,” typically by using a shallow basket to toss the crushed kernels of wheat into the air, allowing the wind to separate edible grain from the lighter and disposable chaff.

The term is also quite applicable as the state Legislature resumes its biennial session.

Winnowing weighty grains of policy wheat from lightweight legislative chaff is not always easy, since the authors of both always profess serious intent.

Read More [[link removed]] California's Low-Wage Jobs Crisis

Media, the political class and policy wonks have identified the “housing crisis” as California’s existential challenge.

Yet, in reality, more critical may be a “jobs crisis” that is condemning ever more Californians to permanent low-wage purgatory.

Viewed in aggregate, California employment growth in the past decade has outperformed the rest of the country, although the state lags its prime competitors Utah, Florida, Texas, Colorado, Nevada. In more recent years the state has remained ahead of the national average, although clearly losing momentum.

This is what many boosters see as proof of the “vibrant” economy. But look closer at the quality of jobs being created. Despite the surge of high-wage employment in the Bay Area, the state has created five times the number of low as opposed to high wage jobs.

Read More [[link removed]] Can California's New Gig Worker And Privacy Laws Survive Against The Power Of Silicon Valley?

Smartphones and apps have created a gig-economy world. And a new California law could reshape that into a different world with a groundbreaking shift in defining who’s a contract worker and whose duties make him or her an actual employee, with the company responsible for healthcare, payroll taxes and the like. Supporters of the law — like Assembly Speaker Anthony Renden (D-Whittier), who called the gig economy “[bleeping] feudalism” — argue that people who work like employees deserve employees’ benefits. The law went into effect on New Year’s Day, but there’s a rush to the courthouse doors by companies like Uber and delivery service Postmates to challenge it.

California also rang in the new year with a pioneering data privacy law, which gives consumers more power to demand to know what online data companies are collecting about them, and more power to tell companies not to sell their personal information — or to get rid of it altogether.

Read More [[link removed]] Why California's Climate Solution Isn't Cutting It

Many Californians take pride in the state’s position on the front lines of the global climate change struggle, but the dismal performance of its centerpiece climate program — cap and trade — shows that in a crucial way the state’s reputation is undeserved. Even here, in the heartland of climate awareness, it turns out that the oil industry calls the most important shots.

A revelatory November report by ProPublica delineates how the oil industry has successfully gamed the cap-and-trade program. The system is supposed to force a gradual decline in carbon dioxide emissions by issuing polluting companies an annually decreasing number of permits to pollute, but it has granted so many exceptions that the program is nearly toothless.

Read More [[link removed]] California Business Roundtable 1301 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 916.553.4093 | [[link removed]] Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] | Unsubscribe [link removed]