Kim Tso: I based my analysis on one simple principle: Children should not be made to pay for the mistakes of grown-ups. With that in mind, this is what I decided.
Sheile Kuehl on Prop 31
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Sheila Kuehl:Prop 31 was designed to find ways to make government more efficient and responsive. Several critics have opined that Prop 31 doesn’t really accomplish the goal, but simply recycles a number of ideas that have been floated through the years without a good deal of empirical evidence on whether or not they accomplish their stated goals.
Two Triggers: One Stuffed, One Deflated
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Although I have to admit I found it a bit creepy, the stuffed remains of Roy Rogers’ beloved steed was displayed on a Rose Parade float honoring Roy’s 100th birthday. Dangerously wobbling at the front of a somewhat over-the-top float, this Trigger, though dead, looked fat and healthy. The state budget Triggers, on the other [...]
Pennsylvania Teachers Work for Free after Budget Cuts
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Teachers Decide To Work For Free After Budget Cuts Leave Pennsylvania School District Without Funds For Salaries The Chester Upland School District in Delaware County, Pennsylvania suffered a serious setback when Gov. Tom Corbett (R) slashed $900 million in education funds from the state budget. The cuts landed hardest on poorer districts, and Chester Upland, which predominantly serves African-American [...]
Jerry Betrays Cesar, UFW, and His Own Legacy
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Randy Shaw: Brown’s alignment with wealthy growers against indigent workers picking crops in the fields surely has Chavez turning over in his grave, and shows that the Governor views the UFW as just another group he is willing to betray.
Democrats Negotiate on Republican Terms
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Randy Shaw: How much more evidence does Brown need that a shift to “Plan B” – moving on tax extensions without Republican support – is overdue?
Jerry: Kill the Death Penalty
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Nyabingi Kuti: Governor Brown was against the death penalty as a two-term Governor years ago. Why didn’t he commute death sentences when he first entered office in 2010? Why do we have to lobby him to do this, at a time when it is fiscally prudent?
California: Where Elections Don’t Matter
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Joseph Palermo: We elected a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in the State Assembly and the Senate. Yet five members of the Republican minority once again are in the driver’s seat and they’re determined to run the state right over the cliff.
Saving Public Redevelopment Agencies
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Alvaro Huerta: I don’t blame Gov. Brown for seeking creative ways to save California from financial bankruptcy. The state budget, however, should not be balanced on the backs of the less fortunate—those who directly benefit from public redevelopment agencies to revitalize their communities.
The Republican Strategy
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Robert Reich: The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
Why Won’t Cities Fight Real State Budget Cuts?
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Paul Hogarth: While some may see Jerry Brown’s proposal as a “power grab” by the state that tells local governments how to spend their money, the truth is that it can prevent some devastating budget cuts that have been afflicting localities for years.
Three Overlooked Propositions
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Paul Hogarth: California voters are already filling out their absentee ballots. While they vote to pass Prop 19 and “no” on Prop 23, it’s important for them to also vote “yes” on Prop 24 and 25 – but most importantly, “no” on Prop 26. If we don’t get the word out, it could pass.
Clueless on the California Propositions?
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This article was posted for the November 2010 election. Click here for the March 8, 2011 election recommendations. Thanks to Marcy Winograd and the Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, you don’t have to go to the polls clueless. You can walk in with your head held high because PDLA has done their homework and provided [...]
Rebooting California
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Diane Lefer: Why does it matter? This year, once again, California not only failed to pass a budget by the deadline but delayed it longer than at any other time in our history, causing chaos and hardship for vendors, employees, and municipalities while harming our credit with rating agencies and raising the interest we pay.
Obama’s Delusions: The Economy and Iraq
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Shamus Cooke: The hundreds of billions of dollars that Obama will use to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan could just as easily go to create jobs in the United States: public works could be financed by the government, as they were during the last Depression, that directly create jobs.
Abel Maldonado: Poster Child for Prop 25
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Paul Hogarth: As Gavin Newsom runs for Lieutenant Governor, he would be wise to make the passage of Proposition 25 a central part of his campaign – which ends the “two-thirds rule” for passing a budget. Because there is no better poster child for how Sacramento’s dysfunction has thrown the state off a cliff than Abel Maldonado – Newsom’s Republican opponent.
A Modest Proposal for Financing Higher Education in California
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John MacMurray: The brilliantly simple/simply brilliant solution: re-designate our Cal State and University of California campuses as prisons. Since a goodly number of the current student population regards them as such anyway, it should not be too big a stretch.
George Lakoff’s Majority Vote Budget Initiative
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Midnight came and went and for the 23rd time in the past 24 years, California State Legislature once again missed another budget deadline, underscoring the need for voters to say “Yes” to the Majority Vote Budget Initiative, which would lead to California’s budget being approved by a majority vote.
Poizner Smears Whitman for Sharing Obama’s Immigration Position in California Governor’s Race
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Andrea Christina Nill: A businessman like Poizner should also be sensitive to the fact that California could risk losing $164.2 billion in expenditures, $72.9 billion in economic output, and approximately 717,000 jobs if it removed all of its undocumented immigrants.
How to Get Your Own News
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Sharon Kyle: In a book entitled, Just How Stupid Are We?, author Rick Shenkman asks, “Are America’s voters prepared to shoulder the responsibility of running the most powerful nation on earth? Do a majority know enough?” These questions are not new but the current economic crisis brings to the fore the urgency of an answer.
Time to Mobilize on State Budget Reform
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Paul Hogarth: If we can’t get a simple majority for raising taxes in the legislature, we can still put AB 656 on the ballot – while in the meantime get a simple majority for passing the budget. It’s those kinds of incremental (and winnable) moves we need to get us out of this mess.
2009: The Year Change Fell Prey to Backroom Deals
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I don’t recall how or when single-payer was taken “off the table” – except that Senator Max Baucus said it was. Without single payer, progressives focused on the public option – which although a compromise, could have held insurance companies accountable. Everyone knew it was tough and compromise would happen, but we were supposed to be part of that decision.
States and Localities Critical to Immigration Policies
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As a result of Congress’s inaction, states and localities are feeling pressure to take action on immigration, and many of the policies that directly impact immigrants’ lives—law enforcement, public benefits, driver’s licenses—are being driven by new state and local laws.
After Nurses Investigation, Scrutiny Turns to Other California Health Boards
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Schwarzenegger shares a measure of blame too: his imposed work furloughs will slow investigations, and his administration should have been on the problem earlier.
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 [...]
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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.