Budget and Finance
Back to homepageSteinberg no longer fights budget cuts
JAN. 24, 2011 By DAVE ROBERTS Just a few months ago Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg excoriated then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $1 billion budget cut for social services, calling it “misguided, cruel, unnecessary and preventable,” according to the Los Angeles
Read MoreIs Brown Dodging Pension Reform?
JAN. 24, 2011 At a League of California Cities event in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown promised local officials struggling under the weight of pay and benefit costs that he would, indeed, put forward pension-reform proposals in the coming weeks. Yet
Read MoreWastrel Cities Prove Brown's Plan Is Right
JAN. 21, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT California cities like to depict themselves as the victims of a bad economy and a profligate state government intent on taking away “their” tax dollars and diverting it to the bureaucracies in Sacramento. But
Read MoreOn-Line Retailers Are Tax Targets
JAN. 21, 2011 By KATY GRIMES In a move designed to be a revenue booster for California, an online sales tax bill has been revived again. But many small online affiliate business owners are saying that if the bill is passed
Read MoreMinimum Wage Hike Would Hurt Poor
JAN. 18, 2011 By JOHN BRINKMAN One of the first labor proposals (AB10) to be considered under Gov. Jerry Brown’s new administration, introduced by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, to increase the minimum wage, must be fought tooth and nail by
Read MoreBrown Targets Corporate Welfare
JAN. 17, 2011 This really could be the beginning of the end for the state’s redevelopment agencies, those noxious, corporate-welfare-enabling entities that have wreaked havoc on property rights in California since the 1950s. The new governor’s budget plan would eliminate
Read MoreWill State Pay For Special Elections?
JAN 14, 2011 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO The best current estimated cost for Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed special election on whether to extend tax hikes another five years is roughly $70 million. Given recent history, counties across the state will have
Read More'Ideal' State Budget Forecast
JAN. 14, 2011 By KATY GRIMES On Thursday the Senate and Assembly Budget Committees got a dose of happy budget talk, and a hopeful economic prognosis, from the state’s Finance Department. But not everyone was buying the rosy outlook. Newly
Read MoreBrown Refuses Minor Pension Reforms
JAN. 14, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT Gov. Jerry Brown is coming into office with a lot of highly publicized and some praiseworthy activity, as he pushes ahead what he calls an honest budget, free from the usual gimmicks, and makes
Read MoreThe Rube Goldberg Budget Machine
JAN. 14, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Governor Jerry Brown’s newly released state budget can be analogized to one of those Rube Goldberg cartoon machines. While Brown’s proposed state budget is a long overdue step in the right direction toward reducing
Read More