Mark Paul

CA Pension Bill in Sacramento Bee | Plan to Open Up CalPERS Reflects Worry About Inadequate Saving for Retirement

Communications — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:58:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Sacramento Bee | Plan to Open Up CalPERS Reflects Worry About Inadequate Saving for Retirement

Investing for retirement is the financial equivalent of eating your vegetables: It's good for you, but sometimes downright distasteful.

Now a proposal making its way through the California Legislature has people talking about whether the state can make putting aside retirement money more palatable.

The plan would let private businesses and workers funnel direct payroll deposits into a retirement investment account. The California Public Employees' Retirement System would administer the pooled money.

No one knows how many of California's 6 million workers without retirement plans would sign up. Many struggle in jobs that leave them with little money at the end of the month. The arcane language of finance can paralyze the uninitiated. And let's face it: We love buying stuff, even when we can't afford it.

"We want everything now," said Lynn Wigginton, a Sacramento certified financial planner. "All the bells and whistles, the newest car. It's a real obstacle to saving for retirement."

The savings plan could change that by making individual retirement investing as close to set-it-and-forget-it as possible.

*Assembly Bill 2940 would let private-sector workers without an employer-sponsored retirement plan sign up for IRAs watched over by CalPERS. The same apparatus used to take taxes out of paychecks would channel direct deposits into the accounts, which could be carried from job to job.

The plan's supporters, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and author Assemblyman Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, believe CalPERS is up to the task. It's already the nation's largest public pension fund, managing $250 billion in assets for 1.5 million state and local government workers.

CalPERS hasn't yet commented on the idea. The fund's staff is analyzing the proposal and should make a recommendation to the CalPERS board at its mid-May meeting. . . Please click here to go to the Sacramento Bee website for the full article.

*Background on the pension bill: Advised by New America's Asset Building Program, Assembly Member Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), introduced AB 2940 to establish the California Employees Savings Program. CalESP will provide voluntary and portable retirement savings accounts that workers can freely take with them from job to job. New America’s Asset Building Program has long called for the creation of a portable retirement account that will enable all workers the opportunity to build wealth and achieve financial security.

Throw Out the Tax Code

Ron Tang — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:25:00 -0400

Politicians don't like to talk about taxes except to brag about cutting them. But with California's widening budget deficit threatening deep cuts in education and other public services, it's difficult to avoid discussions about raising taxes.

Unfortunately, what's likely to be lost in the upcoming partisan melee over whether new taxes are needed to close the $16-billion gap is an equally important tax issue -- California's aging and often unfair tax system needs to be overhauled.

The goal of tax reform should be twofold. One is to generate a more reliable revenue stream. The other is to make the tax… more

CA Retirement Saving Proposal in Sacramento Bee | California Assembly Panel Passes State-run IRA Proposal

Communications — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:15:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Sacramento Bee | California Assembly Panel Passes State-run IRA Proposal

A proposal to open California's retirement system to private sector workers prompted questions Wednesday about government competing with investment firms and the pension system's ability to handle the unique program.

"We just don't know if it's going to work yet," Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, said of the proposal to have the California Public Employees' Retirement System offer IRA accounts to workers whose employers don't offer retirement savings plans.

But Sacramento carpenter Lou Delgado said he would be interested in a CalPERS retirement account.

"I'm 40 years old and don't have anything in a real retirement plan, just some savings of my own," Delgado said. "I've worked for a lot of (companies) and never had something like that, so, yeah, I'd be interested in anything that could put away a few dollars a week at this stage of my life."

*The proposal, Assembly Bill 2940 by Assemblyman Kevin De León, D-Los Angeles, passed its first test Wednesday when a committee that deals with retirement issues approved it on a 4-1 vote, with Jeffries abstaining and another Republican, Joel Anderson of Alpine, voting against it.

Supporters said the idea has been percolating for years, both on the federal level and in statehouses. It's being pushed by think tanks as a way to get low- and middle-income Americans to start saving for retirement to supplement Social Security payouts.

"We're trying to create a new model to get people on board," said Mark Paul, senior scholar at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan institute . . .

As it is, about 6 million Californians work for businesses that do not offer retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he likes the idea. . . Please click here to go to the Sacramento Bee website for the full article.

New America Foundation Praises New, Universal, Portable Retirement Savings Proposal

Communications — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 07:34:00 -0400

Today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Member Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) unveiled a proposal to give California workers access to a low-cost, professionally managed retirement account.

“We applaud Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Member De Leon’s bipartisan leadership” said Olivia Calderon, California Legislative Director of New America’s Asset Building Program. “Too many hardworking Californians don’t have access to a work based retirement savings plan. This is an incredible opportunity for California to show the rest of the nation how to use existing tools to help workers build their savings for retirement and other family needs so that they… more

Lies Sacramento Tells Itself

Ron Tang — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

When you set out to fix something, it first pays to figure out what's broken and why. That's advice that state officials would do well to heed as they try to close a $14.5-billion budget shortfall. But unfortunately, the budget debate in Sacramento has served mostly to shroud the reasons for the problem in three myths.

Myth No. 1: The Deficit Comes from Autopilot Spending.

In his State of the State address last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that "while revenues are flat, automatic formulas are increasing spending by 7.3%. Now, even a booming economy can't meet that kind of increase. So… more

CA Event: How Do/Should We Tax?

Communications — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:34:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/27/2008 - 8:30am

California has a tax system largely fixed in place during the Great Depression, in an industrial economy-setting unconcerned with environmental sustainability. Two questions about this tax system are posed here: First, can California find ways to raise the revenue it needs in the 21st century that are a better fit with our high-tech, service-based economy than is the current system? Second, can California's tax/fee structure be used to meet the state's greenhouse gas emissions under its AB 32 guidelines?

On Feb. 27, 2008, the New America Foundation and the University of California Center in Sacramento hosted a half-day conference with experts discussing these pressing questions. An MP3 audio recording of the full event, as well as presentation materials and conference articles released at this event, are available below.

The 'Something for Nothing' State

Ron Tang — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

You could see California's 2008 budget mess coming years ago.

In 2003, it loomed on the horizon, in long-term fiscal projections that Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill published just days before Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor. Without "actions to bring spending and revenues into line," she wrote, California's budget gap in 2008-09 would be "in the range of $10 billion, assuming the [vehicle license fee] increase remains in place, and $15 billion if it is rolled back." Borrowing to cover up the deficit would only put California on "a slippery slope" toward permanent crisis.

Despite Hill's warning, Schwarzenegger rolled back the vehicle… more

Rethinking Subsidies for Health Care

Articles — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:06:00 -0400

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Núñez and Don Perata have found common ground on the central goal of health care reform: to cover the millions of California workers and their families who don’t get health insurance through their jobs and can’t afford to buy it themselves. The harder part, to no one’s surprise, is agreeing on a way to pay for it.

The governor set out this year to take a big step closer toward universal health coverage by expanding public insurance coverage, requiring every Californian who is not eligible for public programs to buy private insurance and… more

Mark Paul

Operations — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:24:00 -0400

Senior Scholar

Mark Paul is an award-winning writer, editor, and policy expert with wide experience in journalism and California state government and politics. He covered California for 24 years, first as Editorial Page Editor and National Editor of the Oakland Tribune, then as Deputy Editorial Page Editor and columnist for the Sacramento Bee, where he wrote extensively about fiscal policy, health care, economics, urban development, and political reform. He won the 2000 Best in the West award for editorial writing about California policy. After leaving the Bee, he served as Deputy Treasurer and Policy Director in… more

New America Names New Director of California Program

Jerry Irvine — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:46:00 -0400

WASHINGTON, DC (May 22, 2007) — The New America Foundation is pleased to announce that Leif Wellington Haase will take over the reigns of its California Program in Sacramento. Haase will lead ongoing efforts to advance ground-breaking policy solutions to the state’s problems while enriching the quality of public debate in our nation’s leading laboratory of democracy. Gregory Rodriguez, who will continue as Irvine Senior Fellow, will assume additional responsibilities as Director of the California Fellows Program. Mark Paul, a veteran California journalist and policy analyst, will serve as Senior Scholar.

Previously, Leif Wellington Haase led health policy reform efforts… more