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Tag "infrastructure"

How to fund infrastructure fixes: Tax hikes or rearranging spending priorities?

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators are pitching a transportation-tax proposal they depict as the only means to fix California’s crumbling roads, freeways and bridges. One would be hard pressed to find any policy maker in California who doesn’t bemoan

Proposed gas tax hike includes protection against fund diversions

Chris Reed April 2, 2017

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders continued their push Friday for quick approval of higher vehicle taxes and fees to pay for a 10-year, $52 billion plan to upgrade California’s roads and highways with the release of legislative language

State watchdog agency points to flaws in bond oversight

Steven Greenhut February 22, 2017

SACRAMENTO – The Oroville Dam’s near disaster has ignited a long-overdue debate about the condition of California’s infrastructure, and the need for additional investments in its creaky system of dams, levees, freeways, bridges and schools. Democrats and Republicans agree on

Carpooling and mass transit decline; number of solo commuters on the rise

Joel Fox March 5, 2016

If you drive to work alone then you are not, well — alone — in a manner of speaking. It seems that single use occupant vehicles have increased as a percentage of the commuter population while other more communal modes of

State may face $29-43 billion budget deficit in 2020

Dave Roberts January 26, 2016

In Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State Address last week, he noted that California’s budget has repeatedly failed to prepare for recession, resulting in “painful and unplanned-for cuts” to schools, child care, courts, social services and other programs. He

Sacramento mired in budget bickering

James Poulos January 7, 2016

Having failed to deliver during a special legislative session Gov. Jerry Brown called last year, Sacramento Democrats and Republicans squared off on Medi-Cal and infrastructure spending this week. A large health care hole has developed in the current state budget, driven

Sinking CA land to cost billions

James Poulos January 1, 2016

California’s struggling infrastructure faced the daunting prospect of too little water underground and too much falling from the sky. “Four years of drought and heavy reliance on pumping of groundwater have made the land sink faster than ever up and down

Legislators propose differing plans to fund state-wide highway repair

Joel Fox October 20, 2015

There is consensus that California’s roads and highways must be fixed. There is no consensus how the fix should be paid for. A Special Session legislative meeting Friday was called a first step in finding agreement to the funding problem.

Sacramento special session tackles heath care, infrastructure funding, etc.

James Poulos August 21, 2015

A series of clashes marked the two special legislative sessions tacked on this summer to address some of California’s more stubborn challenges. Adding to the controversy of potential tax increases designed to fund infrastructure and health care entitlements, some lawmakers seized the

CA’s road funding plans ‘stuck in traffic’

Chris Nichols July 26, 2015

More than a month after Gov. Jerry Brown called for lawmakers to hold a “special session” on transportation funding, California still doesn’t have a plan for how to close its annual $5.7 billion shortfall for road, bridge and highway repairs.