Joseph Palermo: Jerry’s triangulating. He’s aligning himself with the Republican minority in forging a path forward out of California’s deep crisis.
Disaster Capitalism in the Budget Debate
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Adam Eran: Historic tax reductions on the wealthy, and the Wall-Street-Fraud recession, have reduced public revenues, and this reduction now makes otherwise too-popular-to-cut programs vulnerable. But are such cuts really necessary?
On Wisconsin: End the War, Invest at Home
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Tom Hayden: It is time for our most prominent liberal economists to broaden their analysis of the domestic crisis to include spending for these unfunded wars. Only Joseph Stiglitz has done so.
The California Budget Mess Backstory
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Adam Eran: So the origin of California’s tax reductions, and even its current budget deficit, is arguably oil price inflation. If we want a stable economy, and government without deficits, we need to stop kidding ourselves that spending is a the root our budget problems, and attend to our energy addiction.
Restructuring the CSU or Wrecking It? What Proposed Changes Mean and What We Can Do About Them
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Throughout this period of unprecedented cuts to the CSU budget, the Chancellor and his administration have failed to confront elected leaders or even to educate the people of California about the costs of political choices made around the California budget.
Stealing From California’s Young People
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The professors will endure. But the students and their families are the true victims here. They’re getting ripped off. The quality of their education is suffering even while they go into debt.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Tea Bagging California
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Just as many of the neo-cons seemingly cross their fingers hoping for a mass-casualty terrorist attack on U.S. soil because they see it as political gold for them, they’re also cheerleading for the economy to remain stagnant
Schwarzenegger and the Republicans Cost California $7 Billion
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The California State Senate adjourned at midnight, unable to pass three stopgap bills that would have saved the state $7 billion. To appease Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Democratic leaders of the state legislature hastily drew up the three complicated bills to try to stave off fiscal collapse and the necessity to begin issuing IOUs. All [...]
Constructing a California Budget That Is Least Injurious to the Most Vulnerable
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Resolving our fiscal crisis will require many very difficult decisions, but our guiding principle must be constructing a budget that is least injurious to the most vulnerable. While we will have to take quick action to avoid the state sliding into insolvency, we must take that action in a thoughtful manner minimizing the potential permanent [...]
Interpreting the Failure of Prop 1A
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Immediately after the election, the Governor announced that the “voters had spoken” and that the defeat of Prop 1A “clearly” meant that Californians stood adamantly against any new taxes or fees. He must have been reading the leaves in the bottom of his tea cup in order to come to a favored conclusion, however, because [...]
Stop Wasting Money on Executions
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Capital Punishment is Too Expensive California remains on track to spend over $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years, in the midst of the worst financial crisis in nearly a century. Incredibly, even as state officials announce that they must fill a deficit of $21.3 billion this year, and contemplate drastic [...]
The Magical Mystery Majority Budget
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On Thursday, December 18, frustrated with their inability to attract any Republican votes through long negotiations, both the State Assembly and the State Senate decided on an entirely different tack. They would pass a series of majority-vote bills to cut and change the current, 2008-09 budget. Though such a move would not get the state [...]
California Budget: What Happened Last Fall — The New Budget Immediately Starting Bleeding Red Ink
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The 2008-09 budget which was passed in September of last year ( two and a half months late) contained several overly optimistic (I would say wildly unsustainable) assumptions concerning revenue: First, it assumed the sale of over $3 billion in revenue bonds, but no one wanted to buy California bonds. Second, it “borrowed” from over [...]
Ending the Annual Budget Impasse Ritual
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The California budget process is broken due to the requirement for a two-thirds vote to pass the budget. I would like to suggest a different procedure that preserves the minority protections of the two-thirds requirement while encouraging negotiation and ensuring that there definitely will be a budget passed. Proposal: If no budget passes by the [...]
Schwarzenegger Acting the Tough Guy to Cover for His Weakness? Both Houses of California Legislature Meeting This Morning—But Don’t Hold Your Breath
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I was at the Governor’s press conference yesterday afternoon to see and hear directly his announcement that he would veto any bills sent to him before a state budget is passed. You can read his remarks in their entirety as dutifully transcribed by the Governor’s press office and published on these pages yesterday.
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It’ll Be an All-Cuts Budget “Deal” (Just Like California)
Joseph Palermo: The debt ceiling gambit that Republicans in the House of Representatives have used to tie the U.S. government in knots in recent months is simply the California GOP’s tactic writ large.