Budget and Finance

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Prop. 25 Sparks Debate Over Tax Hikes

SEPT. 14, 2010 By KATY GRIMES A ballot initiative designed to make it easier for the Legislature to pass the annual budget has supporters and opponents up debating the actual intent of the initiative, as well as the ballot measure

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Is Real Cal Unemployment At 25%?

SEPT. 14, 2010 By JOHN SEILER Welcome to the desert of California jobs. Officially, California’s unemployment rate was 12.3 percent for July, the latest month calculated. That’s bad enough. But the real number is twice as much: at least 25

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Meet Blakeslee, The New Swing Vote

SEPT. 9 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO Anyone watching the Cal Channel’s broadcast of the Aug. 31 Senate budget hearings saw an interesting side to newly elected Republican Sen. Sam Blakeslee. In fact, they literally saw all sides. “Here we are,

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ACLU right to fight Orwellian preschool microchip

John Seiler: The ACLU is fighting an Orwellian scheme in Contra Costa to microchip preschoolers, as if they were dogs. You have to wonder what kind of people would enslave kids like that. Think back to your own childhood. Wasn’t

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Legislators debate tax reform

SEPT. 3, 2010 By KATY GRIMES The state is still operating without a budget, but not all the legislative budget discussions this week focused on that pressing problem. The Assembly’s Taxation and Revenue committee on Wednesday looked at the broader

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Is budget a tragedy or a horror?

SEPT. 2, 2010 As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were

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Dems boast of state's great ed system!

SEPT. 2, 2010 Tuesday brought Californians yet another budget charade. The “drill” that took place in the Assembly and Senate over a supposed budget vote, spoke volumes about the real worth of legislators to the state.  But what senators and

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Bloviating rather than budgeting

SEPT. 1, 2010 By KATY GRIMES Speeches, speeches and more speeches, took precedence over cries for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” at the Capitol Tuesday. Posturing, arguing, grandstanding, partisanship and passion were on tap in the Assembly and Senate as legislators debated

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