Budget and Finance

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Investment Tax Credit Could Boost CA Jobs

MARCH 25, 2011 By KATY GRIMES One senator is trying to offer California manufacturers a break to help stimulate business growth. But even his modest sales-tax credit was met with resistance in a hearing at the Capitol on Wednesday. Inland

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Mansoor Siding With Big Government

MARCH 24, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT I just heard from Assemblyman Allan Mansoor’s office and learned that the Costa Mesa Republican, who had been on the fence regarding ending redevelopment agencies, decided to side with big government and the status

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Wealthy and Poor California Spongers

MARCH 24, 2011 Sponges come in all shapes and sizes. And some sponges are much more absorbent. Unfortunately for Californians, the freeloading sponges in the state are soaking up more than ever as California sinks deeper into a sinkhole of

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Suicidal California Amazon Tax

March 24, 2011 By JOHN SEILER Sometimes I wonder if the politicians, special interests and most media in California have a suicide pact among themselves — with 37 million Californians forced to go along. It’s an updated version of the

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Brown’s Budget Blockbuster

MARCH 22, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI (Satire) Gov. Jerry Brown may have learned in Jesuit school how to put the proverbial sacrificial lamb on the state budget altar for slaying. Or maybe he learned from all those Hollywood cinema tycoons

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Activists Gear Up to Stop Tax Increase

MARCH 21, 2011 By JOHN SEILER Opponents of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed $12 billion tax increase already are spoiling for a fight. They’re not waiting to find out the fate of the governor’s proposal to put the matter before voters

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National City Eminent Domain On Ropes?

MARCH 21, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Just as State Assembly Republicans were pulling their punches to keep eminent domain alive for redevelopment in California, a timely eminent domain case involving the taking of a youth boxing center has emerged in National

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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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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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