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Back to homepageCalifornia’s jobs crash worsens
March 9, 2010 By JOHN SEILER In some of the articles I’ve written for CalWatchdog, I’ve devised new ways of looking at policies and their consequences, such as my “California Jobs Gap” calculation here and here. It showed that California’s
Read MoreThe Ballad of John Nunez
Once upon a time — okay, in 1996 — there was a Garvey school board member named John Nunez. He apparently didn’t really get along with another school board member named Robert Miranda, because one day Nunez told a couple
Read MoreFeel like cussing
March 7, 2010 California’s union-dominated, Democratic-controlled Legislature is temperamentally incapable of fixing the state’s structural budget deficit, given that such a fix would require reduced government spending and the granting of fewer benefits to the state’s class of government workers.
Read MoreState fails to track hot waste
March 8, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO Buried within the $3 billion state Department of Public Health is a tiny, troubled agency that deals with some of the most toxic and dangerous substances in the history of the world. Headquartered on
Read MoreInitiative targets cap-and-trade
March 5, 2010 By KATY GRIMES California’s version of “cap-and-trade” is under attack – again. But this time, it’s in the form of a ballot initiative, and not proposed legislation that has thus far, been easily killed. Cap-and-trade, measures created
Read MoreGOP sharks circle McNerney
March 5, 2010 By DAVE ROBERTS If Republicans take back the U.S. House of Representatives in November it will be because they win seats like the one held by Jerry McNerney – a two-term moderate-liberal in the moderately conservative 11th
Read MoreDam-busting plan shrouded in mystery
March 4, 2010 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Reading about the recent signing of Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement by Governors Ted Kulongoski of Oregon and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reminds this writer of
Read MoreCertainty Shmertainty
Just to recap a bit for those following at home: the state is currently running a $20 billion or so budget deficit. What to do about it has paralyzed Sacramento for, well, years, virtually guaranteeing that it will get worse. Notice
Read MoreAIDS rules raise privacy questions
March 4, 2010 By ELISE VIEBECK The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office urged lawmakers last week to generate amore stringent reporting protocol for HIV/AIDs cases, according to a report issued by that office. A new reporting system, the LAO said, would
Read MoreLegislators Consider Merits of Williamson Act
Mar. 3, 2010 By KATY GRIMES For more than 45 years, California farmers, ranchers and land owners have voluntarily participated in the Williamson Act, which restricted the use of their land to agriculture but gave property tax breaks for the
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