Tag "state budget"
Back to homepageWill Democrats in Legislature pressure Gov. Brown to increase state spending?
Will progressive lawmakers challenge Gov. Jerry Brown over his decision to dash their big dreams for the 2017-18 fiscal year? Or will they acquiesce as they mostly have in recent months of May after Brown released revised budgets without money for
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CalSTRS bailout cost: Pension tsunami laps at CA shores
Gov. Jerry Brown’s relative stinginess in seeking to hold the line on social services spending and in demanding an end to the practice of state education bonds paying for local districts’ construction dumbfounds some Democrats, who cite a healthier economy
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Upbeat LAO report lacks key focus: CalSTRS bailout cost
The Legislative Analyst’s Office released an analysis of state revenue this week that suggests the state won’t suffer when temporary tax hikes expire. This is from AP: SACRAMENTO — A steadily improving economy will buffer California’s budget from a drop
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State budget: Governor, lawmakers expected to finalize deal
State lawmakers reached a tentative agreement on the state budget Thursday, after Gov. Jerry Brown caved to Democratic lawmakers’ demands over more funding for in-home support services for elderly and disabled Californians. “We are at this point prepared to bring
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UC Berkeley prof behind invest/spend semantic ploy
AP reporter Judy Lin had a fun story Wednesday about how Democrats are playing the semantic spin game: “SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As billions of dollars in unexpected tax revenue pour into California, Democratic lawmakers have proposed all kinds of ways
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Gov. Brown’s 3D chess game leads to timid politics
If you believe Jerry Brown is a governing genius, then forgive me for laughing until I injure myself. What I think is that he’s scary shrewd at managing the narrative, at keeping people in the dark about what he’s really
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CalSTRS hearing underscores Mac Taylor’s destructive happy talk
An Assembly committee hearing Wednesday on the immense underfunding problems facing the California State Teachers’ Retirement System also illuminated another strange problem in Sacramento: the emergence of Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor as a civic arsonist. As John Myers reported, one
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Brown still on loony, increasingly lonely bullet-train bandwagon
Cal Watchdog managing editor John Seiler and I were among the pundits who got a telephone budget briefing from Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday afternoon. I was disappointed but unsurprised to hear that the governor is still 1,000 percent on
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Critics say CARB botching key part of cap-and-trade program
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (Bloomberg NEF) has accused the California Air Resources Board of a serious problem: double-counting industrial pollution emissions under its cap-and-trade program. Bloomberg NEF, a media enterprise focusing on the energy sector, isn’t the only credible entity
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Hearing uncovered abuse of CA special funds
SACRAMENTO — Only in government is borrowing considered a legitimate way to balance a budget. In California it has become standard operating procedure. To address this growing problem, the state’s Special Funds were the subject of a hearing last week
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