Budget and Finance

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FHA subprime defaults hit 9% in California

May 18, 2012 By Chriss Street The American taxpayer is about to be saddled with another multi-billions bailout of subprime mortgage loan losses  from the stealth Federal Housing Authority lending program that has been offering ultra-low 3.5 percent down payments since

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Assembly hearings expose Brown budget gaps

May 17, 2012 By Katy Grimes Like a woman with a shopping addiction, California politicians are going to bankrupt the Golden State. California has a $16 billion deficit, a $4.6 billion budget spending increase since January, a credit rating which

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Cal State Foundation bonuses pose conflict of interest

May 17, 2012 By John Hrabe Following public outcry over six-figure pay raises handed out to top executives, the California State University Board of Trustees approved a plan last week to shift future pay hikes from taxpayer funds to nonprofit

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JP Morgan fiasco means higher interest rates ahead

May 15, 2012 By Chriss Street If there was an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award for the best acting performance by a CEO, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Bank would surely win the Oscar for his dismissal

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Has Jerry Brown’s budget deficit become a cliche?

May 15, 2012 By Wayne Lusvardi Has California’s legendary structural budget deficit evolved into an overworked and obsolescent cliche? This is a question to be asked of Gov. Jerry Brown announcement yesterday that the state general fund budget deficit has

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Jerry Brown twists out ‘pretzel palace’ budget

May 14, 2012 By Katy Grimes SACRAMENTO–Setting the stage for the Legislature to pass another phony majority vote budget, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown presented a bleak picture of the state’s finances today during his May Budget Revision conference, and then

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New Brown budget pushes tax increases

May 14, 2012 By Brian Calle Gov. Jerry Brown and his allies, in predictable fashion, are using California’s latest $16 billion budget black hole as a tool to justify big tax hikes. Brown did so today in presenting the May

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Brown’s new budget attacks producers

May 14, 2012 By John Seiler Gov. Jerry Brown’s May Revise to his 2012-13 budget proposal, released today, only will club more producers into leaving the state. It calls for $8.5 billion in tax increases from the initiative he is

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Jerry Brown pulls a Nixon

May 10, 2012 By Chriss Street “Only Nixon could go to China” is a political metaphor referring to the ability of a politician with an unassailable reputation among his supporters for staunchly representing and defending their values, to take actions

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Great news: fewer kids going to California universities

May 10, 2012 By John Seiler Youngsters finally are figuring out that going $100,000 in debt to get a degree in poststructural-prepostmodern-quasistructuralist-semiFoucaulist-political-correctness with no chance of a job isn’t exactly the best way to start out in life. A new

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