Columns
Back to homepageWhy does Whiman want to be guv?
March 24, 2010 In all seriousness, will someone please tell me why Meg Whitman wants to be governor of California? She’s spending money on the race like she just won the lottery, and yet she’s behaving like someone who just
Read MoreSo much courage, so few solutions
March 22, 2010 When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn, and as
Read MoreWhat Budget Crisis?
Mar. 19, 2010 I spend my days attending state Assembly and Senate committee hearings, trying to follow proposed legislation. Most days I end up sitting in a red velvet chair in a committee hearing room, listening to the ridiculous banter
Read MoreNo roads to recovery in sight
Mar. 15, 2010 With California teetering on insolvency, government union activists and liberal legislators are trying to whip the public into a “please tax us more” frenzy by scaring people about the consequences of spending cuts. At a union rally
Read MoreIs high speed rail unstoppable?
Mar. 12, 2010 Sometimes, being a legislator can be a very lonely job. Just ask Assembly member Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point. She’s taking on the proposed California High Speed Rail project, and she doesn’t have a lot of help or
Read MoreCalifornian Utopia turns into Dante’s Inferno
Mar. 10, 2010 Inferno, the first part of the famous 14th century epic poem Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri, tells of a man’s journey through Hell toward faith. Along the way, Dante sees the uncommitted souls of the people
Read MoreBrown scandal resurfacing?
Mar. 9, 2010 Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters has been covering California politics since 1975. No one writing about our beloved state government has more experience or authority. But Walters did a curious thing in his March 3 column, titled
Read MoreFeel like cussing
March 7, 2010 California’s union-dominated, Democratic-controlled Legislature is temperamentally incapable of fixing the state’s structural budget deficit, given that such a fix would require reduced government spending and the granting of fewer benefits to the state’s class of government workers.
Read MorePublic Versus Private: Different Sets of Rules
Mar. 2, 2010 The recent stories of state workers abusing vacation policies and comp-time serves as another reminder that there are two sets of rules and laws in California — one for private sector employers and one for the state
Read MoreFleeting hope for fiscal reform
Feb. 28, 2010 Anyone who thinks that gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman offers much hope for fixing the state’s structural fiscal mess should now wonder whether the billionaire former eBay executive might end up being nothing more than another Arnold Schwarzenegger
Read More