Announcing the launch of Driving2Save.com As members of the 2040 Matters community know, it has been quite a while since our last Post. But our silence for the past 6 months has not been a sign of surrender. To the contrary, we have been hard at work launching a new business designed to further many of ...
Everyone has a Stake in Growing our Local Economy
No one is completely insulated from our economic slowdown. In February, a local nonprofit – Reason in Government – released a detailed report assessing and grading the economic health of Santa Barbara County. The County did not fare well. It received an overall grade of D+, with several key indicators trending in the wrong direction. Since ...
Raining on our Local Economic Parade
Those who believe this is as good as it gets in the Santa Barbara area are all wet. Our extraordinarily wet winter and pending activation of the Santa Barbara desalination plant promise some much-needed drought relief this spring. This will, in turn, reduce one of the key barriers to economic growth in our Santa Barbara communities. ...
The Worst Is Yet to Come
CalPERS’ dismal investment performance will wreak havoc on weakening municipal finances unless our elected officials begin taking aggressive actions today. The Los Angeles Times has published another excellent article in its series on “California’s Pension Crisis.” In a piece entitled “Cutting jobs, street repairs, library books to keep up with pension costs,” Judy Lin chronicled why ...
Get Back to Work
Our politicians should keep an eye on DC, but they need to focus on solving California’s many problems. Since the November election, it has become quite fashionable in certain California circles to promote the idea of “Calexit.” Others, including our Governor and Legislature, have positioned California as the leading opponent of the Trump Administration and its emerging ...
California Public Finances 101
As California pension costs increase, so do UC tuition and fees. In one of our most popular Posts in the past year, we noted that as public pension costs have risen in California, so too have tuition and fees in the UC and Cal State Systems. Sadly, this trend is going to continue. As we noted in ...
Contributing to the DC Debates over Homeland Security Policy
In an Op-Ed published on CNN.com yesterday, Brian Goebel argued that proposals to ban Muslim travel and register Muslim residents were misplaced on many grounds and should be rejected in favor of deploying law enforcement personnel to key overseas terrorist travel routes – a strategy similar to the one developed to secure maritime trade after 9/11. In ...
Resolve to Save Money and the Planet
Maintain proper pressure in your car tires. The incoming Administration has resolved to change U.S. energy and regulatory policies in the New Year – changes that are likely to anger many environmentalists in the U.S. and abroad. Anger, however, will not reduce particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions. Thankfully, there are steps we can take as ...
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