Category: Free Stuff (Not)

  • Tax Time: Doing our share, or more

    Just in time for Tax Day, all of the big papers like the SacBee and the California Post are reporting on our fine county’s wealth. It turns out that according to SmartAsset, we are number four in the nation and number one in California. The methodology is always the devil in the details, so here is theirs:

    To identify the wealthiest counties, we compared all U.S. counties across three metrics: investment income, property value, and median income. 

    We started the analysis by calculating the Investment Index for each county by evenly weighing the Ordinary Dividends, Qualified Dividends, and Net Capital Gains. From there we calculated the Median Home Value, and the Median Income for each county, and ranked them on all three metrics. 

    The SacBee reports

    According to SmartAsset, San Mateo County was the richest county in California in 2025 with a wealth index of 68.36 out of 100. Part of the San Francisco Bay Area, San Mateo County offers a “mix of unbeatable weather, charming seaside views and technical resiliency, Built In San Francisco said, making it a popular location for established tech companies and startups.

    About 17% of San Mateo County residents work in professional, scientific, technical or administrative jobs, according to the county’s employment data. County residents had a median income of $156,000, according to SmartAsset. That’s about $56,000 more than the statewide median household income of $99,122 a year, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    There are a lot of reasons for the “top line” — wealth, but as usual at the Voice, we ask what about the denominator? In this case it’s the cost to live here. We know it’s high and for a lot of items, we know why. Since gas prices are top of mind at the moment, you should check out the absolute smack down the U.S. Oil and Gas Association is applying on X to our governor, Tom Steyer and Ro Khanna among others as they blame everyone but ourselves for $6-7.50 gas. It’s embarrassing (if you are them). As they say, “the fish rots from the head”.

  • The Many Flavors of California Fraud

    You have to take notes to keep track of all the flavors of fraud being uncovered in California. Not that you would read about even half of it in the SF Comicle or other establishment press. The drumbeat is loud elsewhere, and today’s drum majorettes are highlighting the “wildlife butterfly bridge” in LA to help mountain lions cross 101 in Agoura Hills. Scoped at $50 million in 2022, it’s now at $114M and counting since it’s not finished. Considering its short span (210 feet), it might rival high-cost rail or the state capitol annex on a percentage basis.

    It turns out the $31 billion with a “b” EDD fraud is just the tip of the fraud iceberg. There’s the homeless-industrial complex fraud, the drug treatment center fraud, Medicaid fraud, autism fraud, hospice fraud, Proposition signature gathering fraud, the community college financial aid fraud, the commercial driver’s license fraud, the non-profit fraud and the cap-and-trade sleight of hand.

    I’m sure there are more flavors, so we will just use this post as the “fraud bucket” to be continually filled. When you hear we need this bond measure or that tax rate increase or that new fee, remember how leaky the bucket is.

  • County: Follow the Money, if you can

    The Washington Post is not one of the six newspapers I subscribe to nor is it available on the racks like the Daily Post or the FT (that is available at Safeway). Therefore, I do not have the WaPo article that goes along with this graphic, but as we used to say when proving a math problem was completed to the point of being obvious: res ipsa loquitur.

    It’s mostly a legal term, but translates to “the thing speaks for itself”:

    The only equation that is more out of balance than the San Mateo County line item is the State of California equivalent. We know from the Merc’s reporting today that:

    Ousting Sheriff Corpus cost at least $4.8 million –but San Mateo County won’t reveal the full legal bill

    Taxpayers foot at least $4.8 million for election, investigations and hearing costs

    While a lot of money, that’s a drop in the bucket overall. Where is the money going? Keep this in mind as you ponder the Transit tax that is in the pipeline.

  • Transit Taxes: Beware the head fakes

    If it were not so sad, it would be humorous to follow the discussion at the SF Comicle about the forthcoming transit taxes for BART, et al and the SMART train up in Marin. The catalyst was a letter to the editor titled “If we’re willing to pay billions to maintain highways, why not fund BART?” I’m betting the author knows a half-dozen reasons why, but is playing the faux equity game to push the new taxes. Y’all come to this blog to see the onion get peeled, so let’s assess the “community value” of our “highways” and our city streets, such as they are, compared to BART, VTA, SMART, Caltrain, etc.

    Which bits of infrastructure enable police response? Fire response? Ambulance response? Utility (electric, gas, phone, internet) response? I am always impressed when the Safeway 18-wheeler makes the sweeping right turn at Howard, maneuvers the extra-long trailer into the parking lot and manages to back the thing into the loading dock. If you have never seen it, you’re missing out. And if we don’t see it every couple of days we will be missing out. Let’s not forget the Walgreen’s semi that got shoo’ed away from the big El Camino Project groundbreaking because it was noisy and inconvenient to the proceedings. You want your antibiotic? It ain’t coming on Caltrain or BART.

    Is a commuter rail line a good thing? Sure. Should it cover its costs at the fare box? No. But let’s dispense with the faux argument that transit can hold a candle to the streets and freeways that keep this whole show on the road. I’m not saying vote “no” on the tax–yet, but San Mateo County appears to be the tail that isn’t wagging the dog once again as the monies flow elsewhere.

  • CSM: “Free college” and new housing

    I’ve been taking a class at CSM one day a week for the last six or seven semesters. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of open space, top notch facilities and not a lot of students. I’m paying a modest tuition for a two-hour, non-degree class and happy to do so. For some degree-seeking students, tuition is “free”. Of course, it’s not free but rather taxpayer subsidized. The freebie has been given to about 5,000 students over the last three years and yet the campus often feels empty on a Tuesday afternoon except for the athletic facility. Now our state senator, Josh Becker, wants to double down on “free” per the DJ:

    Following the success of the San Mateo County Community College District’s Free College pilot, a bill making the initiative a permanent program will be introduced to the California Legislature in the new year.

    The district covers the costs that are waived for qualified students, which Moreno described as a necessary investment. For the 2025-26 school year, the Board of Trustees approved allocating $12.5 million for the Free College expenses.

    The freebies for select students doesn’t give me a lot of heartburn but calling it “free” does. The $12.5M per year comes from somewhere and everyone–students, administrators and taxpayers–should remember that. The next move up on the hill in San Mateo is a big change from a community college to one with on-campus housing. Per the DJ 

    Districtwide student housing at College of San Mateo is inching closer to becoming a reality after the community college district’s Board of Trustees approved a $61.85 million contract with developers who intend to break ground in the spring. 

    The proposed housing facility will provide 316 beds to first-generation, low-income and housing-insecure students attending any of the three colleges within the San Mateo County Community College District.

    As I said, there is a lot of land up there and that makes it possible to do this sort of project at about $200K per bed. The land is also not “free” – it has opportunity costs as well as infrastructure costs to accommodate the intensified usage. Let’s hope this major project is run on the up and up and doesn’t result in another big trial of anyone involved like what is going on down in RWC right now. It would also be nice if the county’s cities got a bit of a RHNA credit for the new housing. Everyone but the YIMBYs knows the RHNA numbers are way off and should be redone. Here’s one chance to do so.

  • Filling “The Village” should be a breeze

    The Village was in the early planning stages back in January 2018 as noted here.  The public parking lot was turned into the subsidized housing project that now towers over the south side of the Avenew and Howard Ave.  The question I have when I see the sign below is why advertising is needed to fill the building?  If the "housing crisis" is so bad, wouldn't there be a long waiting list to get in? As units turn over, the next name is called.  And yet, yesterday this sign pops up again.

    Village sign 070225

  • Fun with economics and the SF Examiner

    I pick up the SF Examiner along with the other local papers when it's in the box.  It's a short eight page read in most issues and not a lot different in perspective than the SF Comicle.  So, you wouldn't expect to see some supply-side economics–that of the dismissed "trickle down" or "voodoo" variety– in the Examiner.  My guess is they didn't even realize it Thursday when writing "Medicaid, SNAP cuts could cost California 140,000 jobs".   The lead reads

    The federal budget plan directs the committees that control Medicaid and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program spending to find a combined $1.1 trillion in cuts over 10 years to help offset trillions in tax cuts — and the report finds the resulting losses would hit California the hardest.

    The first bit of fun with economics is to correct the misstatement "to help offset trillions in tax cuts".  Tax rates get cut (or in this case, lower rates simply don't expire and revert upwards).  What happens to tax dollars collected after that depends on many factors, not all negative, but that is a topic for another day.  The article starts down the trickling path thusly

    Such businesses would see their revenue shrink, which would trickle down to their employees further in the supply chain, across food production, farming and medical equipment manufacturing.  As firms would have to reduce salaries, staffing, or goods and services to make up for the losses, consumer habits would change too, reducing the amount state and local governments are able to collect in taxes, the report finds.

    Additionally, nearly 140,000 California jobs would be lost in directly related fields such as agriculture, food processing, pharmacy and nursing, and indirectly related fields such as retail and manufacturing. The state’s gross domestic product would suffer a projected loss in 2026 of $17 billion.

    All of this sounds dire.  One domino falling after another.  The Examiner finds it problematic because it's Federal (i.e. taxpayer) dollars that are disappearing.  But what is the difference if it were private sector dollars declining?  Businesses burdened by over regulation, crazy licensing and labor rules and high tax rates suffer the same consequences, minus the skim at each level of the government trough.  Will the tax-and-spend crowd notice the similarity at some point?

    A trillion dollars is a lot of money anyway you look at it–even spread over 10 years.  Will getting some semblance of fiscal stability in the federal budget, deficit and debt be good in the long run?  We don't have a lot of choice given the recent trajectory.

  • Friends with 3 million e-Benefits

    Back in May, just before the new fiscal year started, the AP reported that

    Newsom announced on Friday a $26.7 billion deficit, but it’s really closer to $45 billion. That’s because Newsom didn’t include roughly $17.3 billion worth of actions he and lawmakers already agreed on. Those included a cut of $3.6 billion in primarily one-time funding to some school, welfare and climate programs. The plan also delays and defers about $5.2 billion in spending for various programs, including $1 billion to fund rail and public transit systems.

    So how do you manage a massive deficit?  The same way you eat an elephant.  One bite at a time.  Here's an easy morsel from the city e-newsletter this week.

    The California E-Bike Incentive Project application window is officially open.

    During this application period, the program will award up to 1500 vouchers to income-qualified residents for incentives up to $2000 that can be redeemed at numerous participating E-Bike retailers. Additional application windows with more incentives will become available later in 2025.

    1500 x $2000 = $3 million.  It's a good thing more "incentive$" are coming.  Perhaps the only way to get quickly through the Broadway interchange in 2026 will be on an e-bike.  In the meantime, what is Spin's incentive to haul away deserted e-bikes? (hat tip:  regular reader)

    Litter bikes_2

  • Free Lunch: CSM pushes “free college”

    It was three and a half years ago that the community college Board of Trustees set aside $6.75 million to make college "free".  Of course, very little in life is "free" and unless we are talking about a scenic view or a walk on the beach, being "free" can often diminish the self-perceived value of something as well as one's commitment to apply oneself.  And then there are the perceptions of "fairness".  "You don't have to pay the $50 per credit?"  Here is a look back to 2021 for the origin of "free college".

    Free college 2021

    One also wonders how much advertising is needed for something that is "free"?  Just in the last week, my X feed is absolutely overwhelmed by "CSM is free" ads.  There must be at least a dozen different ones, and they just keep coming.  I'm sure they are not expensive to produce, and the X cost is probably not huge to run them.  The same cannot be said for the glossy mailer that arrived in mailboxes yesterday.  I wonder how much taxpayer money went to print it and mail it?  In the really fine print one reads "Enrollment fee waiver for qualifying San Mateo County residents pursuing a degree certification."  One wonders if the advertising costs exceed the waiver costs?

    Free college2

  • Community College: More free sh…..stuff

    In San Mateo County there apparently is something called a "free lunch".  In fact, there are a bunch of them, but this one from the Community College District Board costs $6.4 million.  If the lesson we want to be teaching is how to sponge off Other People's Money, then mission accomplished.  From the DJ

    District officials have spent the past few years working to reduce financial barriers to higher education in part by doing away with some fees and lobbying for Senate Bill 893. The bill took effect last year and allowed the district to waive and use unrestricted funds to cover a state-mandatory $46 per unit enrollment fee for county residents.

    Those waivers cost about $6.4 million, according to the policy that was adopted in April 2023. To support continuing the free college program, Chancellor Melissa Moreno was tasked with securing a permanent financial source to support the continued effort to lower barriers to higher education.

    No word on how she will go about THAT.  Bake sales won't get there.  Expect another vaguely written Measure on the ballot soon.  People don't value things as much when they are "free" as when they have some skin in the game.

    More Free Sh..Stuff

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