Budget Negotiations Getting Combative

MARCH 18, 2011 By KATY GRIMES The Legislature Thursday passed the main budget bill, with nearly $14 billion in spending reductions. Budgets would be slashed for libraries, higher education, parks, programs for the poor, universities and colleges, state parks and

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Jobs First

John Seiler: Anti-tax folks seem to have a hard time pushing their message. Everything gets wrapped up in a “deal,” real or imagined, with Gov. Jerry Brown to put a vote on his $12 billion tax increase before voters in

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Gloves Off, Republicans Debate

Katy Grimes: With California Republican legislators currently at odds over whether or not to support putting Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax extensions on the ballot, it was Republican versus Republican yesterday at a lunchtime debate, over party philosophy and strategy. And

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California Budget Gap Grows

John Seiler: Wayne Lusvardi contributed the following: Where’s Waldo in the Western U.S.? Take a look at the bar graph below, excerpted from the San Francisco Federal Reserve website.  The graph shows in the blue bars the percent of budget

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Families, Not Relief, Still Safety Net

MARCH 18, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI With implications for California budget discussions, a new study shows that unemployment benefits delay the time the jobless find work. The study comes out at a time when California’s unemployment rate of 12.4 percent

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Assembly OKs Prisoner Dump

MARCH 18, 2011 By DAVE ROBERTS On a straight party-line vote, California Assembly Democrats approved a public safety bill on Thursday that Republicans warned will dump inmates out of overcrowded state prisons and into overcrowded county jails — or release

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NPR Losing Federal Funds

Katy Grimes: Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to deny $422 million in future federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and  National Public Radio. As part of the GOP plan to cut federal spending, federal subsidies

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