According to a state audit released Tuesday, the University of California Office of the President has kept a $175 million secret reserve - we dive into the findings and pushback surrounding the California State Auditor's report. We'll also debate the expected cuts in President Trump's new tax plan; the latest ruling on protecting funding for sanctuary cities; flying cars; and more.
Debating the ‘biggest’ cuts in Trump’s tax plan
President Trump is set to unveil what his Treasury Secretary calls the biggest tax cut in US history.
It won't be a formal bill, but what the White House calls principles for its overhaul. The business tax rate would drop to 15-percent, versus the current 35-percent corporate rate. With such a steep revenue drop, how would Congress pay for it?
Guests:
Chris Edwards, an economist and director of tax policy at the Cato Institute; he is also editor of DownsizingGovernment.org, a Cato project that focuses on federal spending
Harry Stein, director of fiscal policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning educational, public policy research, and advocacy organization; he has been following the debate on President Trump’s tax plan
Kyle Pomerleau, economist and director of federal projects at the Tax Foundation, where he oversees the center’s research
Pete Peterson, dean of the School of Public Policy and senior fellow at The Davenport Institute at Pepperdine University
Caroline Heldman, associate professor of politics at Occidental College and co-author of "Rethinking Madam President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House?" (Lynne Rienner Pub, 2007)
Flying cars may soon be a reality
It’s not a bird or a plane. It’s an open, one-seat, 220- pound contraption that flies over water and doesn’t require a pilot’s license; ostensibly, it’s a flying car.
Demoed in a video released Monday, this “all-electric aircraft” is designed by Kitty Hawk, a company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, and according to the company, will be available to consumers by the end of 2017.
And Kitty Hawk isn’t the only flying car developer on the market. Over a dozen different companies, including Airbus and Uber, are currently in the process of developing flying vehicles.
How close are we to actually (some might say, finally) having flying cars? What are your concerns and reservations? And what technology of the future did you, as a kid, think we’d have by now?
Guest:
John Markoff, journalist and book author; he wrote the New York Times article “No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes on the Flying Car;” he tweets
State audit of UC President's Office finds widespread mishandling, hidden funds; UC pushes back
According to a state audit released Tuesday, the University of California Office of the President has raised tuition while keeping a secret $175 million on reserve, spent millions on benefits that aren’t typically received by public employees and doctored surveys on campus spending.
Those are just a few of the findings of CA State Auditor Elaine Howle’s 177-page audit.
The UC Office of the President took issue with many of the audit’s conclusions. In a letter to the auditor, UC President Janet Napolitano said the charges of secret funds”unfairly mischaracterizes UCOP’s budget processes.” The audit’s recommendation to hand budget authority over the Office of the President to the Legislature was said to be unconstitutional by two members of the UC Board of Regents.
We dive into the findings of the audit, as well as the pushback.
We reached out to the University of California’s Office of the President and the UC Board of Regents for comment and were told they did not have anyone available for an interview.
Guest:
Melody Gutierrez, political reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle; she’s been following this story; she tweets
Diving into federal judge’s decision to block Trump’s order on sanctuary city funding
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.
Read the full story here.
Guest:
Sudhin Thanawala, legal affairs reporter at The Associated Press covering federal and state courts; he reported on yesterday’s ruling and tweets
He predicted the revitalization of urban centers like Downtown LA, but Richard Florida now sees the ills
Urban theorist Richard Florida’s 2002 book, “The Rise of the Creative Class” has been both prescient and prescriptive for many city centers in America.
Florida’s book predicted that a class of young, educated millennials who are employed in mostly creative fields would flood deserted urban cores looking for inexpensive housing, thereby changing the fortunes of these neighborhoods.
Florida’s predictions have been mostly correct. But these urban revitalizations - exemplified by Los Angeles’s Downtown - have brought their shares of ills, like gentrification and displacement. The business professor tackles these issues head on in his new book, “The New Urban Crisis.”
Guest:
Richard Florida, a professor of business at the University of Toronto in Canada; he is the author of many books, including his latest, “The New Urban Crisis” (Basic Books, 2017)