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If you ask readers of The Sacramento Business Journal, the answer is unfortunatley, not very good.
Fifty-one percent of companies say the economy continues to be “brutal,” while 48 percent of executives surveyed say the “recession is easing up,” according to a just-released quarterly report by Pacific Staffing.
The Sacramento company contacted 71 companies for its survey, with the economic forecast heavily dependent on the industry.
For example, construction companies are the most pessimistic about an economic turnaround, with 13 percent expecting economic hardship to continue, while 2 percent are optimistic for a recovery soon. Retailers — one of the hardest-hit industries — are the most optimistic, with expectations of a much-improved fourth quarter. Manufacturers and service companies were split on their outlook.
Also, 52 percent of companies contacted expect to hire during the fourth quarter, but much of the demand is because of attrition. But companies expect to hire more during the next three months than any period this year, and a dramatic improvement from a record-low outlook in the first quarter.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has secured a special deal protecting his state against the costs of expanding Medicaid under one of the major health care bills moving through Congress. While his actions may be good news for the people of Nevada, it’s bad news for cash strapped California.
Facing a difficult challenge in his re-election campaign next year, Majority Leader Reid’s side deal protects the citizens of Nevada from a significant portion of the costs contained in the health reform legislation being pushed by Congressional Democrats. Unfortunately, according to the New York Times the changes came at the expense of not only California but also Florida and Illinois, which would see significant increases in state Medicaid spending under the new formula.
From the New York Times report:
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has secured a special deal protecting his state against the costs of expanding Medicaid under one of the major health care bills moving through Congress.
…Under Mr. Baucus’s original proposal, the federal government would have paid 87 percent of the new costs in Nevada. Under the modified version, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the new costs…
…
Now Mr. Baucus has modified the bill to spare Nevada and three other states, and Mr. Reid, who faces a potentially difficult race for re-election next year, is taking credit for getting a “major increase” in federal money for his state.
All of the versions of Obamacare currently in Congress cover more uninsured Americans by expanding Medicaid. But the Baucus bill keeps its total price tag below $1 trillion by shifting the most cost to the states.
That super-soft toilet paper you’re fond of using? According to environmentalists, it’s an ecological disaster.
A new campaign by Greenpeace seeks to raise consciousness among Americans about the environmental costs of their toilet habits and counter an aggressive new push by the paper industry giants to market so-called luxury brands.
“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age,” Hershkowitz said. “Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers
in terms of global warming pollution.”
The Washington Post reports:
It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
Honda Motor Co has unveiled an electric battery-powered personal transporter, a unicycle shaped like the number eight that riders steer by leaning in the direction they want to travel.
The “U3-X,” which Honda will show at the Tokyo Motor Show next month, is the latest to join a growing number of futuristic transportation devices, such as the much bigger Segway.
The single wheel on the U3-X is made up of many tiny motor-controlled wheels, packed inside the bigger wheel, allowing the device to swerve in any direction.
Honda’s prototype has an internal self-balancing system–the single large wheel is actually made up of a number of smaller motor-control wheels that allow the U3-X to move forward, backward, diagonally and sideways without toppling over. The vehicle, has a maximum speed of 3.7 mph.
The UK’s Daily Mail has a video HERE.
The latest Gallup poll of American adults shows overwhelming satisfaction with current medical care and insurance plans, which explains why most of them would like to improve the existing system rather than put government in charge of it:
Americans are broadly satisfied with the quality of their own medical care and healthcare costs, but of the two, satisfaction with costs lags. Overall, 80% are satisfied with the quality of medical care available to them, including 39% who are very satisfied. Sixty-one percent are satisfied with the cost of their medical care, including 20% who are very satisfied.
There is a clear gulf in these perceptions between the health insurance haves and have-nots. According to a Sept. 11-13 USA Today/Gallup poll, the 85% of Americans with health insurance coverage are broadly satisfied with the quality of medical care they receive and with their healthcare costs. At 79%, satisfaction with costs among Medicare/Medicaid recipients is particularly high.
The 15% who are uninsured are far less satisfied with the quality of their medical care (50% are satisfied), and only 27% are satisfied with their healthcare costs. (Sixty-nine percent are dissatisfied with their costs.)
The bottom line from Gallup is that Americans are much more skeptical than optimistic about the likelihood that healthcare reform will reduce their own healthcare costs.
Due to concerns over the conditions at Arco Arena, the NCAA has bypassed Sacramento’s bid for hosting the regional round of the men’s collegiate basketball tournament through 2013. Local officials have been told the city won’t be considered until it replaces ARCO Arena.
The Mayor made the announcement on his blogthis morning calling the news “devastating” and “embarrassing”. Sacramento has been in rotation to host the first and second round games since 1994. Arco was host to to the tournament in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2007.
According to officials, when Arco hosted the tournament in 2007, fans filled the arena, and the event injected $4 million into the local economy.
The NCAA rejection message supports what the owners of ARCO Arena have been saying for a number of years. Built in 1988, ARCO is the oldest arena in the NBA.
New reports from the Tax Foundation show that President Obama’s policy proposals will increase the financial dependence of middle-income Americans on the federal government.
Specifically, by 2012, if President Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care and climate change become law, 70 percent of American families will, as a group, be receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal tax.
Currently the bottom 60 percent of the income spectrum receives more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes.“Attempts to put ‘price tags’ on health care and cap-and-trade proposals vary among government agencies and think tanks,” said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge, “but one vital question has been left unanswered: Counting all federal taxes and spending, how would these policies affect American families’ financial ties to the government? The foundation’s new ‘fiscal incidence model’ answers that question.”
“Currently the bottom 60 percent of the income spectrum receives more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes,” said Hodge. “By 2012, if President Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care and climate change become law, 70 percent of American families will, as a group, be receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal tax.”
In fiscal year 2010, the lowest-income families will receive $10.44 in federal spending for every dollar in taxes they pay. Middle-income families, who are the targeted beneficiaries of many Obama policies, will receive $1.15 in government spending benefits for every dollar they pay in taxes.
The Tax Foundation also reported:
When only taxes are analyzed, Obama’s policies lead to tax increases for a curious mix of rich and poor families. Families earning less than $23,700 are disproportionately affected by regressive cap-and-trade policies and higher tobacco taxes, and those earning more than $280,000 will see their tax payments go up because of higher income tax rates. On net, however, when spending is included, the lowest-income households gain more than $2,200 while the highest-income families lose more than $127,000.
You can see the full press release from the Tax Foundation HERE.
The ongoing controversy over the community organizing group ACORN – spurred by a series of undercover videos shot for biggovernment.com — has shaken the world politic. The bombshell investigation into the community organizing group ACORN has highlighted Acorn employees apparntly blithely encouraging prostitution and tax evasion.
The undercover videos showed a scantily dressed young woman, Hannah Giles, posing as a prostitute, while a young man, James O’Keefe, played her pimp. They visited Acorn offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., candidly describing their illicit business and asking the advice of Acorn workers. Among other questions, they asked how to buy a house to use as a brothel employing under-age girls from El Salvador.
The story has quickly become one of the biggest of the year… all uncovered by two young amatuer activists.
In our clip of the week The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart takes the main stream media to task asking the mainstream media… “WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?”
WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP HERE: http://www.hulu.com/watch/95851/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-audacity-of-hos
In response to the Acorn videos, an instant hit on YouTube, the Senate voted 83 to 7 on Monday to prohibit the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving federal housing money to the organization. The bill’s advocates said the group had received $53 million in such financing since 1994.
Last Friday, the Census Bureau dropped Acorn as one of 80,000 national unpaid “partners” helping promote the 2010 census, saying the group’s involvement might “create a negative connotation” and discourage participation in the population count.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the attorney general to investigate ACORN’s activities in California in the wake of a video showing a volunteer giving advice on setting up a brothel.
On the site BigGovernment.com two activists have posted videos of their visits to ACORN (Association of Community 
Organizations for Reform Now) offices around the country in which they posed as a prostitute and a pimp seeking advice. The series of videos highlights Acorn employees exhibiting outright disdain for the law.
The most recent video was released Tuesday and reveals a San Bernardino, California ACORN worker telling undercover filmmaker James O’Keefe and his associate Hannah Giles about how she ran a prostitution business, how she shot and killed her husband, and how on a daily bases she talks to multiple lawmakers including Sen. Barbara Boxer and California State Senator Negrete-McLeod.
ACORN is a national organization that serves low-income residents and has been involved in controversial efforts to register Democratic voters. More than 37,000 members make up California ACORN. With exposes now public from three different offices, pressure is mounting on state officials to investigate potential illegal activities and misuse of state funds by ACORN offices.
Through the short memo, Schwarzenegger has now officially asked Brown to launch a “full investigation” into the activities in San Bernardino. His spokesman, Aaron McLear, said the governor wants to find out whether the organization has engaged in criminal activity.
“Over the past few days, I have seen a series of news stories regarding the ACORN organization that have concerned me greatly,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “As you may be aware, the most recent report has come out of San Bernardino. Given this, I believe it is appropriate that your office launch a full investigation into ACORN’s activities in California . My administration stands ready to assist in any way necessary.”
Whether or not the Attorney General will pursue such an investigation is unclear, but the Sacramento Citizen has obtained exclusive information regarding the question of whether or not state funds have been issued to ACORN.
The most likely state agency to have issued fund would be the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the statewide agency with the mission of providing “policies and programs to preserve and expand safe and affordable housing opportunities.” Through various bond and grant monies the Department frequently provides funding opportunities for local governments, groups and organizations which can help to meet the goal of creating and preserving more housing in the state.
HCD shows no record of ACORN receiving any awards from the Department in bond funds, federal funds or from the General Fund. However, the Sacramento Citizen has learned that the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA), which provides financing and programs tot create affordable housing opportunities for individuals within specified income ranges, reported that in 2008 they did award federal NeighborWorks grant dollars to ACORN offices in California.
NeighborWorks is a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance, and training for community-based revitalization efforts.
Last year NeighborWorks made grant funding available for various housing projects. CalHFA applied for a portion of those funds on behalf of California. There were several criteria to be met to make an entity eligible to then apply for those federal funds either directly through Neighborworks or through CalHFA. One of those requirements is that the entity must be a “qualified counseling intermediary” – which means they had to be HUD approved. ACORN met that eligibility requirement, and therefore was eligible to apply for funding the federal funding through CalHFA.
Of the $8 Million in federal monies that CalHFA made available through the first round of funding in 2008 only $611,340 went to ACORN offices in California. Apparently while CalHFA has now opened applications for Round 2 of funding and no ACORN groups have applied for funds.
Allegations of fraud have dogged Acorn, for years sometimes resulting in convictions. On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to strip ACORN, of more than $1.6 million in federal housing money meant to assist low-income people obtain loans and prepare tax forms. This dramatic step followed last Friday’s decision by the U.S. Census Bureau to sever its ties with the organization, one of several community groups it was partnering with to conduct the nation’s head count.
Both of these actions came after secretly recorded videos involving employees in Acorn’s Brooklyn, N.Y., Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Md. and San Bernardino, Calif. offices were televised on Fox News. This series of videos across the Nation have show Acorn employees exhibiting outright disdain for the law.
A fourth video released yesterday on the Glenn Beck show, reveals a San Bernardino, California ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) worker telling undercover filmmaker James O’Keefe and his associate Hannah Giles about how she ran a prostitution business, how she shot and killed her husband, and how on a daily bases she talks to multiple lawmakers including Sen. Barbara Boxer and California State Senator Negrete-McLeod.
ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke, told O’Keefe and Giles that she ran a prostitution business and that she knows how not to get caught. She would make $15,000 a month and the women who worked for her 10k. She told Giles, that if she beat the girls working for her, she would “get more out of them.” and that prostitution should be legal.
Kelke goes on to tell how she shot and killed her husband. She claims it was in self defense but says that she laid groundwork before, talking to agencies on how her husband was beating her. She said she has no problem with killing people.
ACORN has been closely associated over the years with liberal causes and Democratic politicians. The group says it has registered 1.7 million low- and moderate-income voters since 2004, a period in which Democrats scored major victories in consecutive national elections.
More than 37,000 members make up California ACORN. The group organizes communities across the state, centered around thirteen offices.
With exposes now public from three different offices, the pressure should develop on states’ attorneys general to open investigations of these ACORN operations. Yesterday, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched an investigation into pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers. Now that state lawmakers have been named in the latest video will California Attorney General Jerry Brown follow suit and launch his own investigation?
California’s Attorney Gernal has a long list of duties and responsibilities, one of which is to participate in criminal investigations and establishes and protect Californians from fraudulent, unfair, and illegal activities. General Brown will face a choice of ignoring the sleaze or doing his job and opening an investigation. CA’s AG is proud of his crime-fighting record, but ACORN’s operations will put him in a big box if their east coast employees have counterparts on the west coast. If he does nothing, expect that inaction to be part of the campaign for the Golden State’s governorship, already underway.
According to the Press Enterprise, California State Senator Negrete McLeod said on Tuesday that she recalls Kaelke attending a July 10 meeting in her Montclair office to talk about state legislation dealing with medical bills and mortgage fraud. Apparently Kaelke was one of a group of about six people who supported legislative measures AB 1503 and AB 260.
UPDATE: On Wednesday evening Governor Schwarzenegger urged Attorney General Brown to investigate ACORN activities.
When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade legislation, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.
At the time proponents of Cap and Trade legislation dismissed the analysis done by Heritage pointing instead to estimates from MIT’s John Reilly, who put the cost at $800 a year per family.
Now, a previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
The documents (PDF) was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act Christopher Horner at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Horner says,
These are candid, internal discussions of what they are telling each other and what they won’t tell you. The words cap and trade were chosen for a reason, and that is to avoid a vote on tax. This memo tells you it’s a tax. Why else are they discussing hundreds of billions of revenue to be taken from the taxpayer?”
The energy tax amounts $1,761 a year for families – “the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent” as stated by Declan McCullagh of CBSNews. Horner writes that the Treasury memo offers much more, including:
the admission that cap-and-trade would cause the loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs which, as happened under Europe’s scheme, tend to export themselves to saner environments. Windfall profits under the scheme of allocating the ration coupons, the Waxman-Markey approach, are also admitted to.”
These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats’ cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June — the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to “no” — and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.
The admissions are akin to Heritage Foundation’s economic analysis of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill where they found:
As noted over at CBSNews Blogs, the The Freedom of Information Act, of course, contains no this-might-embarrass-the-president exemption (nor, for that matter, should federal agencies be in the business of possibly suppressing dissenting climate change voices).
• Higher energy and other costs for a household of four averaging nearly $3,000 per year between 2012 and 2035.
• Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion for the same time period;
• Single-year GDP losses reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion;
• Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035;
• A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
• Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.
The latest survey on news media from Pew Research shows that the public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.
“Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade.”
Pew also polls on each of the major national media organs. By their count CNN fares best, as even a plurality of Republicans view it favorably. Perhaps just as surprisingly, Fox News — which has been the subject of far-Left derision for years — comes in a close second, with a plurality of Democrats approving of their performance. In the aggregate, though, broadcast network news does best with 64% favorable, and majorities of both Republicans and Democrats approving.
The New York Times fared the worst. Only 29% give the paper a favorable rating, with Republicans going 2-1 unfavorable (31%-16%), much worse than the statistical tie the GOP gives on MSNBC (35%-34% unfavorable). Independents, which give all other outlets wide pluralities or majorities for positive assessments, only give the Paper of Record a wan 29%-18% plurality.
In the final analysis, the Pew numbers show a terrible decline in credibility on news reports. In 1985, 55% of the American people had confidence in the mainstream media to get the facts straight; now it’s merely 29%. Now, 63% say their reports are “often inaccurate,” up from 34% in 1985. Small wonder that the mainstream media now struggle to keep readers and viewers.
In the last few days of this legislative session Senate Republicans have been withholding votes all legislative measures requiring a 2/3 vote.
According to sources inside the building, Senate Republicans were withholding support on those measures in order to get previously negotiated and agreed upon budget deals. Apparently Majority Leadership made several promises, dating back to February of this year which, to date, have not been upheld. Senate Republicans have therefore been attempting to use the 2/3 vote measures as leverage forcing Dem Leadership to produce on prior promises made
Now Senate Democrats, are stripping the urgency clauses from bills on the floor so they may be passed with only a majority vote.
And so the typical last minute shenanigans begin…
Tic toc… tic toc….
With a matter of hours left in this year’s legislative session, lawmakers have yet to agree on their most pressing priorities — water reform, prison spending and renewable energy mandates.
Members are rushing to find a last-minute compromise on major water legislation. The Fresno Bee’s E.J. Schultz has an update on the efforts here.
UPDATE: Apparently as lawmakers and Senate President Pro Tem Steinberg (D) continue to rush on a solution to the state’s water problems, residents of Sacramento and the Delta are protesting the potential bill & Steinberg’s efforts.
Nearly 3,000 days have passed since the attacks of 9-11, almost one day for each one who has been taken from us on that fateful morning. Eight years since the United States suffered the worst attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor. It was a day that forever changed America and the world.
The nation paused at the moments when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon — 
symbols of America’s financial and military might — and at a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
There was silence at the site of the former World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane struck the North Tower, followed by another at 9:03 a.m. when a jet struck the South Tower.
President Obama spoke at the Pentagon to those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, telling them no words would heal their pain yet calling for a renewed resolve against the ones who attacked the country eight years ago.
For many of us the memories are still fresh in our minds and hearts as we reflect on lives of loved ones affected so personally and so tragically. Today our nation is full of tributes and memorials. As it should be. As a nation we should daily remind ourselves of the events of that day and why we continue to push forward in the cause of freedom.
Last year on the seventh anniversary of 9.11, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the following statement which bares repeating: “Today we renew our vows to never forget how this long struggle began and to never forget those who fell first.”
As we look back to that tragic day eight years ago we should take pride in the fact that we came together as a nation in the days, months and years that followed. We rose to the challenge that fateful day and we still can.
Californians are taking an increasingly dim view of the governor and members of state legislature. Field Poll numbers show that nearly three out of four survey respondents — some 74 percent — said they do not approve of the job that members of the California Legislature are doing. Along with a mangled and heavily politicized budget process, legislative measures like Senate Bill 88 continue to provide reasons why the California Legislature deserves to be held in such low public esteem.
SB 88 is one of the measures “gutted and amended” on Friday to incorporate provisions very similar to AB 155 (Mendoza), a measure that sought to require state permission prior to a local agency seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. When heard in the Senate Local Government Committee earlier this year, AB 155 failed to garner even the motion necessary to move the bill so that a committee vote could be taken. Now authored by Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), SB 88 gives new life to a misguided effort to prevent local governments from filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code.
The last minute process of “gut and amends” has become an annual Legislative tradition in the final weeks of the legislative year. “Gut and amend” is a practice used during the final days of a legislative session in which the entire contents of a bill are stripped out (“gut”) and replaced with something new (“amend”). Opponents argue that the practice is used to slip through bills at the very end of a legislative session without public input. Although such bills are still subject to legislative committee hearings, often those hearings are held on short notice.
In essence, SB 88 undermines local officials’ discretion in responding to fiscal crises by providing that a local public entity may only file for bankruptcy with the approval of the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC), which may impose prescriptive conditions including an express prohibition on the abrogation of union contracts, thereby significantly preempting local control and promoting efforts by unions to preserve their contracts in cities faced with stark budget decisions that affect their taxpayers. These potentially prescriptive conditions imposed by CDIAC cannot be overridden by a local agency – therefore undermining local control.
But power behind the bill and the real reason for its last minute re-emergence is the state labor unions. SB 88 is so important for the public safety and labor unions throughout the state, because this bill will provide labor unions more control over municipalities finances and make permanent union contracts, should municipalities go bankrupt. This leaves public safety unions unscathed and immune to economic realities, and perpetuate unsustainable fiscal policy within each municipality.
Such state interference with local governments is unconscionable, especially for a Legislature that repeatedly has failed to balance the state budget or make necessary reforms to prevent recurring budget crises. It is the responsibility of bankruptcy courts, not a politically motivated state commission, to judge whether a fiscally troubled municipality is able to pay its bills and if it has a viable plan for reorganizing its debt to get back into the black.
The gut-and-amend nature of the bill, on a topic of such significance and sensitivity, particularly following the bruising battles of the state budget, makes SB 88 especially outrageous. It is not only an example of why the California Legislature deserves to be held in such low public esteem, but of the power and influence public unions sway over California’s legislative process.
Perhaps the greatest irony comes when one realizes that the author of SB 88, Senator DeSaulnier, was recently appointed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to chair the legislative committee in charge of examining reform of the legislative process.
In a recent press release from Assembly Speaker Karen Bass’s office outlines the Joint Select Committee’s responsibilities including making government more transparent and accessible from around the state, diminishing the influence of special interests.
UPDATE: Assemblyman Mike Duvall has resigned from the State Assembly less than 15 hours after CBS News and the Orange County Weekly broke a story of him bragging about multiple extra-marital affairs on a live microphone in the State Capitol.
Various Southern California media outlets are reporting here and here that Orange County Assembly Republican Michael 
Duvall, was caught bragging about sex with two Sacramento lobbyists into a hot microphone during an in-house broadcast of a committee hearing.
Freshmen legislators arriving in Sacramento receive advice from veteran politicians about the intricacies of working in California’s capital. One of those tips is to remember that microphones broadcasting legislative debates can also capture embarrassing, career-ending personal admissions if a politician isn’t careful. Assemblymember Duvall, Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District representative, must have forgotten the warning.
The Assemblymember is the vice chair of the powerful Utilities and Commerce Committee. According to reports, one of the affairs was with a lobbyist for the energy company Sempra. In this video, Assemblyman is overheard giving vivid details of his sexual exploits. But Duvall wasn’t content to just share one adulterous tale at the July 8 committee hearing. He referenced a second, simultaneous affair with another woman. The assemblyman was apparently not aware the microphone was hot as he sat next to an unidentified colleague, explicitly detailing trysts with each of the women.
Duvall is a second term assemblyman from the 72nd District and married with children. He represents Anaheim, Fullerton, Placentia, Orange, Brea, La Habra and Yorba Linda. According to the reports, both lobbyists involved with Duvall are also married.
While we normally limit ourselves to Sacramento specific news, the unraveling of US Representative Charlie Rangle (D-N.Y.) has taken another fascinating turn this morning that is worth noting here at the blog.
This morning CBS went after Charlie Rangel in a big way by probing the embattled House Ways and Means chair 
over his connections to the very people evaluating his ethics. The House committee is currently investigating Rangel for a series of false disclosures and tax evasions, but Rangel acts as though he has nothing to fear. What does he know that we don’t? CBS follows the money:
CBS 2 HD has learned of more alleged back-door dealings and political power peddling by Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel.
The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently “wrangling” other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles. …
CBS 2 HD has discovered that since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.
Charlie’s “angels” on the committee include Congressmen Ben Chandler of Kentucky, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Peter Welch of Vermont. All have received donations from Rangel.
According to reports only Representative Peter Welch realized the perception of the gift and proceeded to return the nearly $20,000 donation.
Nancy Pelosi has assured Mr. Rangel that he can keep his powerful chair on Ways and Means while the ethical probe continues. Apparently the Washington Post editorial board has heard enough.
With only a matter of days left in the 2009 legislative year, lawmakers have formed a Legislative Conference Committee on Water. The conference committee is charged with creating a series of reforms that help reform and shape California’s antiquated water system and lead to a reliable supply of water for the state’s water users.
On Wednesday Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) and Republican Senators Huff, Cogdill and Aanestad, along with members of the Legislative Conference Committee on Water, joined by the Carpenters´ Union and Latino Water Coalition held a news conference to point out the need for a serious and comprehensive water package to solve California’s growing water crisis.
“We must have a comprehensive solution that reflects the importance of water to our state´s economy. Senator Cogdill has been leading the effort for years to invest in our water infrastructure and we are hopeful we can complete this quickly, and provide the water Californians desperately need,” said Senator Hollingsworth.
While some local water agencies have built regional projects to increase local water supply and storage, California’s state and federal water systems have not seen any major upgrades since the State Water Project was completed in 1973, despite the addition of nearly 14 million residents.
According to population projections, the state’s total population will increase to 60 million people by the year 2050, an increase of over 56% from the 2000 census numbers. As the state’s population continues to grow, this is putting strain on our existing water supplies, as well as bringing into question the ability to accommodate this expected future growth.
At the same time, a historic drought has reduced the snowpack California depends on to fill its reservoirs, and the Delta, critical hub of California’s water system, faces multiple risk factors to its fragile levees. In other words, the Conference Committee has a lot of issues to resolve and little time to do it in.
The Committee will meet every day this week and through the Labor Day weekend. The Committee has until Tuesday, September 8 to bring a final conference report to the floor of both houses. A conference report can only be brought to the floor if eight conferees (four from the Senate and four from the Assembly) sign the conference report.
The California Senate Republican Caucus Conferees have created a blog page where people can follow related stories and issues taking place as the Conference Committee works towards a comprehensive solution.
On August 28 from noon to 5pm thousands of Californians will once again march on the Sacramento Capitol as part of the Tea Party 
movement to protest a government they believe has spun out-of-control and is infringing on their freedoms and overburdening industries which compose the very fabric of California; mining, construction, ranching and farming.
Since Democrats took control of Congress and the White House, conservatives, independents, libertarians and disaffected democrats have become increasingly vocal opponents of the policies they see as growing government spending and power. They’ve taken to the streets in growing Tea Party rallies to decry the stimulus, last year’s bank bailout, the current health care reform efforts and debate over cap-and-trade energy legislation.
Now the Take Our Country Back PAC, has joined forces with the Tea Party movement to organize a 16-day national tea party tour, taking their small-government message to towns all over the country. Two 45-foot buses will snake their way across America, conducting a series of 35 tea party beginning in Sacramento Aug. 28 and ending with a “March on Washington” Sept. 12.
Although Tea Party participants started out as a group coming together to protest wanton government spending and taxes in general, the group is beginning to pick targets, like health care reform and ecologic law blocking business. At the August 28th rally in Sacramento the theme is simple: “March on Sacramento, Save California from Big Government Eco-regulation.”
Thousands of farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners and others from across the state will gather from noon to 5pm to speak out against policies, such as AB 32 a law passed in 2006 that will impose more greenhouse gas emission limits on businesses beginning 2011.
Rally speakers will also target decisions to protect the Delta smelt with waters that are no longer going to San Joaquin Valley agriculture. Tea Party members allege it is reducing state food production and forcing families to lose farms.
Already suffering from a staggering economy, lawmakers recieved more bad news Tuesday during a hearing of the state Senate Budget Committee. At the hearing officials reported that declining property values and the potential loss of hundreds of millions in revenue due to furloughs could further strain California’s budget, contributing to shortfalls in the current and next fiscal years.
Tax officials reported Tuesday that total statewide property values fell by 2.4% in the latest fiscal year, the first such drop since California began keeping records 76 years ago in the depths of the Great Depression. As of June 30, the assessed value of all taxable property in California was $4.448 trillion, down $107.2 billion from a year earlier.
The loss means less money and more misery for already strapped state, local and school district treasuries. Essential public health and safety programs are facing more budget cuts and personnel layoffs, while schools probably will pack more children into each classroom, tax collectors warn.
California’s shrinking property values is yet one of the many tax problems facing the state. At a Senate hearing on Tuesday Franchise Tax Board and Baord of Equalization reported that the State’s two largest tax agencies won’t collect an estimated $350 million in revenue over the next year because furloughs and budget cuts have harmed their ability to audit returns and collect money owed by taxpayers, top state officials said Tuesday.
Furloughs at the Franchise Tax Board and budget cuts at the Board of Equalization account for only a fraction of the $1.3 billion in estimated savings – about $100 million in unpaid salaries. Officials told the Senate committee that the furloughs and cuts resulted in $177 million in uncollected revenue in the last fiscal year, an estimated $367 million this fiscal year, and an estimated $420 million in the 2010-11 year.
The tax agency officials testified that furloughs and budget cuts mean less outreach to taxpayers to explain tax rules, lost audit opportunities because statutory deadlines will have expired, and taxpayers going out of business before collection efforts can be launched.
Recently, the Legislature passed a package of budget revisions to help California resolve its $26 billion budget crisis. At the time lawmakers closed the massive deficit, they agreed to cut $1.2 billion from the prison system without saying how to do it.
Capitol Weekly reports, “Legislative Democrats will
push for a commission to create a new system for prison sentences as part of Democrats’ prison overhaul plan, which will be voted on the floor of both houses Thursday.As part of the plan being discusssed, the Legislature would release or divert from state prisons 27,000 inmates in the current fiscal year and another 10,000 in the fiscal year that begins next July.
Liberals in Sacramento claim that the only people who will be released are low-risk offenders, and those convicted of non-serious or non-violent crimes, but this should give no comfort to parents and families throughout California. No euphemism can hide what these criminals really are. “Low-risk inmates” are not “low-risk” at all — they are inmates who have been incarcerated for crimes not considered “serious” or “violent.”
We know that the real impact of early release on our region and our state will not be reducing the budget, but causing more innocent people to become victims of crime.
Consider reports by the nonpartisan RAND Corporation, and other groups who study prison populations that found that the average prisoner on early release committed at least 13 new crimes before being taken back into custody. Recently the California District Attorneys Association sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying that reducing criminal sentences to help balance the state’s budget will lead to rising crime rates.
So what can be done to cut $1.2 billion from the corrections budget? Target the bloated prison bureaucracy and reduce unnecessarily high medical costs. The cost of prison bureaucracy has increased 105 percent in the last three years. California pays over $46,000 per inmate! Compare this to Texas’ yearly inmate cost of $18,031. One would assume our prisons are bursting at the seams, but our state inmate population was relatively flat during this three-year span.
From 1997 to 2008, health medical care costs rose 325 percent. Inmates should not receive a premium health care package while so many others scrape together money to pay for their own health care, or have no health coverage at all.
Early release is not a responsible budget solution. The first responsibility of Government is the public safety of its citizenry. The call for early release of inmates is nothing more than an abdication of responsibility by those who support the plan and a slap in the face of all law abiding Californians.
Sacramento officials are working on a plan that would create a campground where homeless people could stay temporarily. A task force assembled by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has prepared a report for a proposed “Stepping Stone” campground that would house up to 60 people.
The campground would provide basic services such as running water and garbage pickup. According to the Sacramento Bee, the camp would be run by a governing board of homeless people, with the help of a social worker or case manager, and would have strict rules against drug and alcohol use and violence.
The proposal would have to be approved by the City Council. If the facility is completed as hoped by the spring, it would open about a year after more than 100 homeless campers were forced to leave their controversial “tent city” outside of downtown.
The plan creates a legal “safe ground” where people without permanent housing could camp without police interference. Backers say no site has been identified for the campground.
According to new data released by Gallup on Friday, conservatives outnumber liberals in all 50 states–including President Obama’s home state of Illinois–even though Democrats have a significant advantage over Reps in party identification in 30 states. Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.
At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.” Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are moderate.
The bottom line as stated by Gallup is that despite the Democratic Party’s political strength — seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country — more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal. While Gallup polling has found this to be true at the national level over many years, and spanning recent Republican as well as Democratic presidential administrations, the present analysis confirms that the pattern also largely holds at the state level. Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Gasoline prices are creeping back up after declining steadily for about three months. Gasoline prices have been moving up quickly around the country over the last few months, putting us back up to the highs of last summer. If 
you’re feeling a sense of deja vu, yes, it’s true, something similar seems to happen every spring. There has always been a strong seasonal in gasoline prices, with prices highest in the summertime when demand for gasoline is highest.
According to the Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento-area prices inched up a penny Monday, and more than 18 cents during the past week, a much-brisker pace than the national average, according to a report released late Sunday.
Sacramento’s average gas price is $3.03 cents, compared to $2.85 a week ago and the same a month ago. Last year, the nation was dealing with near-record-high gas prices, with Sacramento at $4.01 for regular unleaded. Sacramento-area’s record-high is $4.57 reached June 17.
Nationally, the average price at the pump increased 16 cents to $2.77 per gallon during the past two weeks, according to energy analyst Trilby Lundberg in Camarillo. Charleston, S.C., had the lowest price at $2.38, while Honolulu has the highest at $3.07.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s top lawmakers are set to resume talks Monday with the hope of hammering out the final details on a deal to close the state’s $26.3 billion budget deficit after canceling talks scheduled for Sunday evening due to a scheduling snafu with Assembly Leader Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles).
The leaders, who last met on Friday, have said for days that they are near agreement on a package to eliminate California’s $26.3-billion deficit. Legislative leaders said they made “huge progress” Friday night in talks in the governor’s office and had planned to meet again Sunday night in hopes of finalizing an agreement.
She said floor votes in the Legislature are tentatively planned for late this week. Details of what is in the package have not been disclosed publicly.
Among the issues that have bedeviled the months-long negotiations: a plan to take money from local governments; education funding; cuts in state welfare services; and the governor’s demand that changes to the structure of state government be part of any plan to plug the budget gap.
While legislative leaders did not meet on Sunday evening, The Sacramento Citizen has learned that high level staff did gather in the Governor’s office on Sunday afternoon to discuss and review some of last outstanding pieces of the budget puzzle.
So what’s in the current proposed deal? Capitol Weekly reports the following:
“Under the framework of the deal, sources in the governors office and the Legislature say schools would be cut $680 million above and beyond the reductions adopted by the Democrat-controlled legislative conference committee. While the state’s welfare program, CalWORKS, would not be entirely eliminated, the cuts would also go beyond what the conference committee had proposed.
Democrats also appear to have been able to hold the line against reducing the length of time people can receive welfare benefits. Currently, there is a five-year maximum on welfare benefits, and Schwarzenegger had sought to reduce that number to two years. Democrats said it appeared changes in the benefit eligibility timeline would not be made as part of this budget deal.
“Local governments are also slated to take a big hit, but Bass said it remained unclear what the final number on local government cuts would be. Among the proposals on the table are to take about $1.6 billion worth of gas tax revenues from locals, and another plan to borrow up to $2 billion from local governments overall budgets.”
Unless the train runs off the tracks during negotiations today, lawmakers could be looking at a budget vote by Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers failed on Wednesday night to agree to balance the state’s budget by closing a $26.3 billion deficit, but officials said talks would continue.
The prime obstacle that reared up to undercut the talks late Wednesday was a difference over how to tweak voter-approved school funding formulas so the state can cut billions of dollars it still needed to balance its books — but guarantee that school funding was restored when the economy rebounded.
Aside from the disagreement over education funding, (Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron) McLear said Democrats remain “unwilling” to make deeper cuts to create a healthy reserve so the state can weather an economy that could get worse before it gets better.
The legislature’s two top Democrats said budget talks would resume on Thursday.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, had said earlier on Wednesday he was hopeful a deal to resolve the lengthy budget crisis was near and might be reached by the end of the day.
“There’s no nastiness in the discussions, no blowups,” he said at a press conference. “There’s none of that, so I think we have a good shot of getting the budget done today.”
The state government began its fiscal year on July 1 facing a historic budget gap and a severe cash crisis.
California, which would be the world’s eighth largest economy if it were an independent nation, has issued IOUs to vendors as well as taxpayers owed refunds to save cash for servicing of state bonds and other priorities payments.
Among sticking points in negotiations are Schwarzenegger’s demands for a budget deal including changes to rules he says will prevent fraud in welfare programs.
He has also proposed paring education spending by suspending a voter-approved measure that locks in funding levels for public schools. Democrats oppose both ideas and are especially concerned about education spending cuts.
The size of a budget reserve also is being discussed. A cash cushion may help the state sell short-term debt after a budget agreement is reached. “It’s all about being able to go out to the market after this is done,” Steinberg said.
State Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth said the state could use a reserve of up to $2 billion.
California’s IOU effort is also intended to calm Wall Street. Credit rating agencies have grown increasingly anxious about sagging state revenues propelled by the recession and double-digit unemployment.
Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday cut its rating on about $72 billion of the state’s general obligation debt by two notches to Baa1, or three notches above speculative “junk” status. Moody’s said there may be further downgrades because the risk to priority payments — and eventually debt servicing payments to bondholders — is rising without a budget deal.
On July 6, Fitch Ratings cut its credit rating on California to BBB, just two notches above junk level.
Democrats have conceded there will be no tax increases in a budget deal as Schwarzenegger and anti-tax Republicans in the legislature’s minority have demanded and have accepted dramatic spending cuts to fill the state budget gap. “We have made very, very deep cuts,” Bass said.
It looks as though the state budget is finally taking its toll on California lawmakers.
As California sinks further into the financial abyss, lawmakers have attempted for months to reach a $26 billion budget compromise. Not only does this lack of resolution have the Capitol community perplexed and bewildered, but it seems to have tempers flying high, as witnessed by what happened in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday between democratic committee members and Assemblyman Mendoza (D-Norwalk) while presenting his AB 377.
Exit Note: Even if lawmakers arrives at a compromised budget fix in the next few days, the economic outlook for California remains bleak. Consider, for example, the new dark, but perhaps realistic, projection by University of California, Santa Barbara,economists. The UC Santa Barbara forecast has California’s unemployment rate, now over 10 percent, nearing 14 percent by next year, which means another half-million workers would join the jobless ranks. California has a baseline general fund budget of about $110 billion a year. Revenues, without the recently enacted tax increases, are at least $25 billion less. Even the tax increases will erase only about $10 billion of that annual shortfall.
Hat tip courtesy of Champagne Politics
Capitol Weekly is reporting that it’s make-or-break day in the California state budget neogtiations, as the governor and party leaders resume talks today, some of the thorniest issues surrounding how to balance a $26.3 billion deficit remain unresolved. Meanwhile, IOUs from the cash-strapped state continue to pile up in mailboxes across the state: As of Monday, California had issued 129,786 IOUs this month, totaling $435,706,583.33, to vendors, taxpayers awaiting refunds, local governments and others, according to Controller John Chiang.
Things will get no easier when the five legislative leaders prepare to talk about education funding in a round of meetings set for today. School funding is the largest portion of the state budget, and the decisions over whether to pay back schools billions in lost funds over the next several years, and whether to suspend the Proposition 98 guarantee, are two of the central questions in the ongoing budget talks and debate.
The Chron’s Matthew Yi reports, “Schwarzenegger wants to suspend Proposition 98 , a 1988 voter-approved law that guarantees funding levels for K-12 schools and community colleges. Suspension of those rules would allow the state to make deep cuts to education spending.
“But the Republican governor’s proposal has provoked sharp criticism from Democrats and the California Teachers Association.
The politically powerful teachers union began a statewide TV ad campaign last week criticizing the governor, and Schwarzenegger is firing back with a TV spot that will begin airing today arguing he will not sign any budget deal that includes taxes or does not eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in government.”
Meanwhile, as the tone seems to have been changed around the budget talks, yesterday saw a strange upping of the ante, as the governor took to the airwaves with commercials of his own promoting no new taxes and a quick budget solution . John Myers reports,
“Sacramento is asking me to sign a budget that raises your taxes and spends money we do not have,” says the governor in an ad that’s reminiscent of the old days. Also known as 2003.
Yes, the ad (a throwback as much as the ad against him) comes across as Schwarzenegger the candidate promising to “clean house” at the state Capitol. “I’m asking you to stand firm with me,” implores the governor in a 60 second ad that’s full-screen Arnold with an almost eery crescendo of music at the end.
“The timing of the ad seems somewhat at odds with the warm and fuzzy vibes oozing out of this weekend’s eponymous Big Five meetings, a sense that all sides were finally getting close to reaching accord. It will be interesting to see if the ad hastens a resolution or simply further distances legislative leaders. Following is the ad:
Mike Zapler reports that despite the ad, the mood remains optimistic . “When it comes to California’s perpetually dismal state budget, good news is relative. So the fact that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders spent much of the weekend huddled in Schwarzenegger’s office talking about how to fix the gaping budget shortfall may well pass for cause for encouragement.
After a week of name calling and communication breakdown, the budget negotiators ended this week on their best behavior, with long Big 5 meetings and nebulous promises of progress toward a budget deal.
AP’s Judy Lin reports, “Against a backdrop of IOUs and expanding government furloughs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders expressed optimism Saturday that they were moving toward a compromise that could end California’s fiscal calamity.
“Negotiations to close the state’s $26.3 billion deficit restarted after two weeks of inaction and partisan bickering. Top lawmakers from both parties said a budget-balancing deal was possible in the coming week.
“I would say we’re getting very close to a general framework, but there are still outlying questions,” said Assembly Minority Leader Sam Blakeslee, a San Luis Obispo Republican, after emerging from a closed-door meeting between lawmakers and Schwarzenegger.
“They negotiated about 2½ hours Saturday before ending talks for the day. Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth. Negotiators were expected to return to the Capitol Sunday.”
AP’s Samantha Young reports that despite the progress, a deal remains elusive .
Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday that they had made headway after a weekend of closed-door meetings at the Capitol, but acknowledged a deal remained elusive. It was unclear when legislative leaders would reconvene for talks.
“Lawmakers remained at odds over how to close the budget shortfall despite a consensus that severe spending cuts were inevitable. Schwarzenegger also wanted to seek out waste and abuse in welfare, in-home support and health care programs. The governor’s office has said those reforms could save taxpayers roughly $1.7 billion this fiscal year.
“Over the weekend, lawmakers discussed some of those reforms, as well as proposals to consolidate state agencies to save money and generate revenue by selling state property.
“The biggest test will come in the next few days when lawmakers said they expect to make difficult decisions about cuts to education and welfare. The legislative leaders must also win the buy-in of their respective caucuses once a deal is struck.”
On Wednesday afternoon Governor Schwarzenegger held a press conference to discuss the next steps that need to be taken to solve the state’s ever growing budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger declared a new state of fiscal emergency, launching another special session for lawmakers to continue dealing with the state budget crisis. The Governor also announced a third furlough day per month for state workers. Those furloughs will occur on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fridays of every month through June 2010.
Schwarzenegger also announced that he would not sign any legislative measure unrelated to the budget.
By allowing the fiscal year to end without trimming $3.3 billion from the 2008-09 education budget, lawmakers and Governor Schwarzenegger lost the chance to cut spending in a manner considered crucial to bridging the $24 billion deficit. The new deficit number will be roughly $26.3 billion, approximately $2 billion higher than the governor’s May budget, according to Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance.
Before turning the press conference over to the Director of Finance, Mike Genest, the Governor proposed additional program cuts to solve the larger deficit problem, and once again pushed for reforms to the state’s pension system.
By allowing the fiscal year to end without trimming $3.3 billion from the 2008-09 education budget, lawmakers and Governor Schwarzenegger lost the chance to cut spending in a manner considered crucial to bridging the $24 billion deficit.
Instead, Senate Republicans, Democrats and the Governor remained in a political standoff over other parts of the budget, particularly how much to slash health and welfare programs. As a result, Capitol Weekly reports the standoff got a little more expensive this morning. “The state Senate rejected three bills that would have lessened the state’s immediate cash crush by billions of dollars in a surreal late-night session in which a packed Senate chamber quietly counted down the minutes to the new fiscal year, as Senate leader Darrell Steinberg’s efforts to cajole Republicans came up empty.
“Republicans in the Senate, at the behest of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, did not vote for the bills because Democrats and Republicans could not come to an agreement of a comprehensive $24 billion budget solution that the governor has repeatedly said he must have before signing any partial budget fixes.
“The bill’s failure means that Controller John Chiang will begin issuing promisary notes to certain state vendors so that the state has enough cash on hand to meet debt service obligations and make education payments that are constitutionally required.”
Schwarzenegger plans to declare a new state of fiscal emergency today, launch another special session and propose additional program cuts to solve the larger deficit problem, spokesman Aaron McLear said. The new deficit number will be roughly $26.3 billion, about $2 billion higher than the governor’s May budget, according to Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance.
If you didn’t stay up for the festivities, you can read the saga of the final moments of the last fiscal year, blow-by-blow, on the Sacramento Citizen’s Twitter feed.
UPDATE: According to the San Jose Business Journal when readers were asked to name who is most responsible for the state’s fiscal crisis about 42 percent of those responding to the Business Pulse survey blamed the Democrats for the stalemate concerning the state’s $24.3 billion budget deficit.
Late this afternoon, Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Leader Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles held a press conference regarding the continued budget standoff.
Following is a short hand transcript from the Steinberg and Bass press conference this afternoon regarding the budget:
Steinberg:
wanted to give you an update. 10 mins ago the senate sent down two bills to gov. One was budget bill that contains cuts and the other was one time revenue bill. Those bills will package of 3 bills in question would amount to 22 billion. We hear gov plans to veto. Going to everything we can to avoid losing 3 bill in solutions and solve deficit.
Speaker and I met with gov this morning to figure out how we resolve the all or nothing scenario in which we lose the 3 billion. We sent down letter to gov that committed to sending gov package of reform solutions over the next 60 days and would take action on them by August 30th. Restructuring medi-cal, eligibility for public assistant programs, bill to reduce fraud in IHHS. We had no formal response from him. His strategy still all or nothing. Comes down to one key issue — whether or not we cut the safety net in CA to the bone.
Yesterday gov’s office media alternatives. Unacceptable. In IHHS he proposes to remove level 3 recipients. Those people need physical assistance to bath. In Cal WORKs, 25 million people won’t get job training. In Cal grants 22,000 second chance students wouldn’t get grants. The price is too high. There are other options even with taxes.
Bass:
the bills we are sending down today do not include taxes. If we get votes for the 3 bills in the senate, on his proposals, and solves our majority vote proposal then we have solved the problem. 6 billion in damage if he doesn’t sign. Proposal would go into affect a little bit later. IHHS- we passed out two bills that address fraud. We are serious about it. But we need gov to take action.
Stein: also if we lose these cuts then maintains factor kicks in. If gov signs 3 bills he doesn’t lose ability to negotiate. Still have 20 something bill problem to solve.
Q: Not sending tax bill to gov?
Stien: No.
Q: no oil or tobacco tax?
Stein: no. Indep contractor Withholding and acceleration
Q: Prop 1A borrowing?
Bass: No. That takes 2/3rds.
Q: If gov says he’ll sign then will sen reeps put up votes?
Bass and Stein: Yes.
Q: How do you know?
Stein: we know
Q: Any chance of solving whole thing today?
Stein: no. Gov wants to make more cuts to health and human services areas than we are willing to do.
Q: what about healthy families?
Stein: don’t agree with gov alternative one that.
Q: how do you get to 24 without elim safety net?
Bass: we don’t cut as deep.
Stein: we are willing to talk to administration about Prop 1A.
Q: not possible to have solution tonight?
Stein: no. Not a drafted solution. We can work on framework.
Q: strategy for tonight?
Stein: get back to senate floor. 3 bills will go on call.
Bass: asm is recess but we’re ready to go back if needed
Q: hope of getting sen reep votes without gov?
Stein: there is always hope
Hours away from being forced to issue IOU’s to pay it’s bills, California’s budget problems evolved into a game of political chicken Thursday, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and GOP state senators took an all-or-nothing stance on the budget.
On highly unusual bipartisan votes, the Assembly overwhelmingly passed three bills that would free up cash for the fiscal year that starts Wednesday, by cutting school spending and delaying some payments to schools, colleges and local governments.
But the bills sank in the Senate in the face of united opposition by Republican senators and the governor. Gov. Schwarzenegger has vowed to veto the democratic majority vote only plan, which Republicans say they will fight on the grounds that it unconstitutionally raises taxes without the required two-thirds vote.
The result was another wasted day in the quest to erase a $24 billion budget deficit before next Wednesday.
State Controller John Chiang has warned that without a balanced budget in place by then, he will begin using IOUs to pay most of the state’s bills. That would mean approximately $3 billion in IOUs would be sent out in July to everyone from state contractors to college students, welfare recipients and low-income seniors.
Now as the state faces a deadline literally hours away, the governor has announced at the 11th hour that he wants to reform the state’s pension system first. Call it a ‘revised vision’ for the budget if you will.
“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling current benefits “unsustainable,” proposed a sweeping reduction in pension and retiree health benefits for new state workers.
“His plan would give new employees the same pensions received by state workers before a major benefit increase a decade ago, saving the state an estimated $74 billion over the next three decades.
“The new state workers would have to work 25 years, instead of 20, before receiving maximum retiree health coverage that would pay 85 percent of the average HMO premium, instead of the current 100 percent, saving the state $19 billion.
The recent proposal by the Republican governor is one of a series of “structural reforms” he is seeking as he negotiates with the Democratic-controlled Legislature to close a $24 billion state budget gap.
With President Pro-Tem Steinberg (D-Sacrament0) promising a Session that goes until mindight, Tuesday is looking to be a long day for state lawmakers. Despite the entrenched sides, California’s political leaders realize that solving California’s budget crisis gets $3 Billion harder at midnight. That’s because the plans by both Democratic leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger include about $3 billion in spending cuts in the 2008-09 fiscal year that ends tonight.
As the San Jose Business Journal reports, if those cuts are rolled over into the new fiscal year’s budget, the state’s constitutional funding requirements would have to be suspended and $10 billion expected from the federal stimulus package would be lost.
Apparently the budget isn’t the only thing that has come to a screeching halt in Sacramento. KXTV is reporting that extreme heat affected light rail service overhead wire connections at 7th and K streets Monday, disrupting train 
service shortly after 3 p.m.
Sacramento Department of Transportation crews were working to repair the connections for the Blue and Gold Line services.
Passengers traveling on the light rail from Meadowview and Folsom toward the central business district were urged to board buses at 16th Street. Travelers going from Interstate 80 at Watt Avenue should board buses at Alkali Flat.
Until the train service is restored, buses will travel between the Alkali Flat/La Valentine light rail station along K Street to the Archives Plaza station. The buses will stop at each station on the way to pick up and drop off light rail passengers.
Information courtesty of News10/KXTV/ All Rights Reserved
Sunday night Assembly Democrats passed a $23.4 billion package of cuts, tax and fee increases, and accounting tricks designed to close a gaping hole in the budget for the fiscal year that starts Wednesday. On Monday, the California Senate followed suit acting upon the same package of legislative measures.
The Democratic majority vote solution is comprised of a package of bills that made deep cuts in state spending, raised taxes on cigarettes, imposed a new tax on oil production and raised or imposed new fees on property insurance policies, vehicle registration and drivers licenses.
Part of the debate circulated around the new oil severance tax. During the Senate Floor debate Senator Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) rose to speak regarding the potential effect of the new oil severance tax on jobs in California:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made it clear this morning he won’t sign a package of taxes and cuts approved by Assembly Democrats last night as a way of balancing the state budget.
“I will veto any majority vote tax increase bill that punishes taxpayers for Sacramento’s failure to live within its means,” the governor said in a prepared statement. “The Legislature will have a difficult time explaining to Californians why they are running floor drills the day before our budget deadline. We do not have time for any more floor drills or partial solutions. It’s time for the Legislature to send me a budget that solves our entire deficit without raising taxes.”
It’s sort of sun-rises-in-the-east news, since the governor had already said he did not favor further taxes or fees as part of the budget-balancing solution. But it does blunt the effects of the squeeze play Democratic legislators were attempting.
Senate Pro-Tem Darrel Steinberg (D-Sacramento) announced that the Senate will reconvene this afternoon at 4pm to continue budget discussions.
Typically, tax increases and budget votes require a two-thirds majority. Since just over one third of the Assembly is controlled by Republicans, that means Democrats need at least a 
handful of GOP votes. However, late Sunday night Assembly Democrats passed a $23.4 billion package of cuts, tax and fee increases, and accounting tricks designed to close a gaping hole in the budget for the fiscal year that starts Wednesday. The vote was made without a single Republican vote courtesy of a legislative loophole which requires only a simple majority vote for “fee” increase.
Sunday night’s package holds nearly $2 billion in tax and fee hikes including: a 9.9 percent tax on oil production, a $1.50-per-package tax on cigarettes and a $15 per vehicle registration fee.
While tax hikes normally require two-thirds approval, Democrats argued that by eliminating an 18-cent per-gallon excise tax on gasoline, the net revenue to the state becomes zero and thus doesn’t represent a tax hike. Sunday’s bills then would replace the excise tax with an equivalent fee, which Democrats argue does not require a two-thirds vote.
Bloomberg’s budget team reports ,”Democrats, who control the legislature, are at an impasse with Republicans and Schwarzenegger over whether to make up the difference with spending cuts or tax increases. Absent a fix by July 1, the state will begin issuing IOUs to pay bills.
The State Assembly spent nearly two hours Sunday night debating Assembly Bill 39, which included the fee increases. The bill ultimately passed, 44-30, with two Democrats voting no.
While the plan was debated on the floor, Bass was exchanging words with Senate Minority Leader Hollingsworth and negotiating with the governor on an alternative and.
The leader of the Assembly’s minority Republicans, Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), said the proposal is illegal and Democrats would set back budget negotiations by passing it.
Meanwhile the Senate adjourned at 9:30 p.m. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), said that senators would take up the majority vote package this morning.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vowed to veto any budget package that includes tax increases, and he vetoed a budget last winter that contained a similar tax ploy.
Sacramento - Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) issued a statement regarding Assembly Speaker Bass’ comment about reforming government.
Speaker Karen Bass: “Any attempt by the Governor and Senate Republicans to push for those right now would be immoral.”
“The Democrats need to get serious about solving the 24 billion dollar problem. The people of California clearly told us on May 19th that they expect us to do our jobs and solve this problem with no new taxes. Republicans, the Governor, the Treasurer and the Controller all agree we have a 24 billion dollar problem,” Hollingsworth said.
“One of the few protections the people have against unlimited taxes being placed on them is the 2/3 vote requirement. Reaching further into the pockets of California taxpayers to pay for bloated programs, continued fraud, abuse and wasteful spending is immoral.”
SACRAMENTO (AP) — California lawmakers are preparing to meet again to consider California’s $24.3 billion budget shortfall before the state is forced to start issuing IOUs.
Both houses of the Legislature have scheduled Sunday night sessions, although Democrats and Republicans remain divided about how to solve the deficit. Timing is running short, with the new fiscal year beginning Wednesday.
Democrats met with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier. He offered new moneysaving proposals on funding state pension benefits and administering health and human services programs.
Democrats want to avoid IOUs being sent to state contractors by cutting $11 billion in spending and using other solutions to save cash. They would address the rest of the deficit later.
Schwarzenegger and Republicans want to address the entire deficit at once.
The Associated Press
Copyright 2009 / All Rights Reserved
California’s budget mess got even messier Wednesday, with the failure of legislators to reach a compromise on spending cuts, the state controller warning he will issue IOUs next week instead of checks, and no clear idea of what to do next.
Facing a $24 billion deficit, Democrats put up for votes a bill containing about $11 billion in spending cuts. The measures required two-thirds majorities to pass but fell short in both chambers on mostly party-line votes, with Republicans saying the reductions did not go far enough. Democrats then called it a day rather than stage a drawn-out spectacle.
Democrats also proposed $1.9 billion in tax increases on oil extraction, tobacco and car registrations, but those were not put up for a vote Wednesday given fierce Republican opposition. The following video clip is from Senator Roy Ashburn’s (R-Bakersfield) Senate Floor speech during yesterday’s budget debate.
Ashburn Speech on Democrats Unreal Budget Proposal from CA Senate GOP on Vimeo.
The question now is whether the two sides can find a compromise in time to avoid a fiscal meltdown. Both parties have drawn lines in the sand.
A California assemblyman has split from the Democratic Party as both houses of the Legislature head toward a contentious vote this week on a plan to bridge the state’s $24 billion budget gap.
Juan Arambula confirmed today that he has re-registered as an independent.
Formerly a moderate within the Democratic caucus, Arambula is scheduled to be termed out next year from his Central Valley district, which encompasses portions of Fresno and Tulare counties.
It is not immeditely clear how Arambula’s decision will affect the coming budget vote, which includes more than a dozen bills that will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to take effect immediately.
Arambula was contacted just as one of his Assembly committee meetings was scheduled to start. He said he did not have time to discuss his reasons prior to the meeting.
Two weeks ago, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass named Arambula to head the Assembly Public Safety Committee in a shuffle necessitated by the departure of former Assemblyman Curren Price to the Senate.
Arambula was removed by Bass from the Assembly Budget Committee and a budget subcommittee on state administration upon being named chairman of the public safety panel.
Arambula has a reputation for speaking his mind and not necessarily voting in lockstep with the Democratic caucus.
Three years ago, then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez ordered Arambula to move into the Assembly’s “doghouse,” a shoe-box sized Capitol office often reserved for lawmakers in disfavor with their party’s leader.
Arambula was relegated to the tiny, fifth-floor office of 807 square feet after refusing to fall in line with Democratic leadership on a record $37.3 billion bond package passed Friday.
Arambula also was stripped at the time of his chairmanship of the Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economic Development and the Economy.
Weeks later, Núñez relented, reinstating Arambula as committee chairman and offering his old office accommodations back.
Arambula is a former member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and the Fresno Unified School Board.
The son of immigrant farm workers, Arambula possesses a master’s degree in educational administration and policy analysis from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of California, according to the biography posted on his Web site.
He lives in Fresno with his wife, Amy. The couple has four adult children.
One of the inherent problems with California’s budget is that time and again lawmakers have managed to put off difficult decisions and pending “disasters” through a series of band-aid budgets, shell games and ‘kick the can down the road’ solutions. Now the state faces a $24 billion deficit, and
borrow. But faced with a money crunch the likes of which the Golden State has never seen, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators have pulled a less obvious tool out of the box. Call it budget magic – the simple reincarnation of budgetary gimmicks and paper mache solutions. Mike Zapler looks at some of the “proposed solutions”: “Need an extra $2.3 billion? Easy — just make people pay more of next year’s taxes this year, by increasing paycheck withholdings and estimated tax payments.
“How about selling a chunk of a state insurance fund? That’s good for a cool $1 billion on paper, even if experts say it’s highly uncertain the sale would fetch that much, if it can be executed at all.
“Expenses still too high? Here’s a really creative one: Push back state employees’ monthly paychecks in June 2010 by a single day — from June 30 to July 1 — and thus onto the next fiscal year’s books. Just like that, $1.2 billion “saved.”
Those are just some of the maneuvers — or, to use a less charitable term, gimmicks — that the governor and lawmakers have suggested to help fill a $24 billion shortfall through June 2010. The proposals add up to about $10 billion, depending on what one defines as a gimmick.
Yet as Reason Online points out, finding places to cut costs without reducing the state to post-apocalyptic squalor is not the difficult task some lawmakers would make out to be. As explained in California’s political newspaper Capital Weekly a few weeks prior:
Democrats unveiled their spending proposal Wednesday, and got some tepid reviews from the governor and Republican lawmakers.
Capitol Weekly reports, “The state’s budget standoff seemed either to be approaching its final chapter, or on the verge of unraveling entirely, depending on your vantage point in the state Capitol Wednesday. “Democratic leaders met with the governor to walk him through their new, $23.3 billion budget plan Wednesday morning. Afterwards, Schwarzenegger walked out of the meeting to face reporters, and discuss all the things in the plan that he didn’t like.
“I cannot sign a budget that has tax increases in it,” Schwarzenegger said. He also criticized Democrats for adopting temporary budget solutions that did not solve the state’s fundamental spending problem, and for failing to cut state worker pay.
You can watch exerpts of the governor and legislative leaders discussing the Democrats’ budget here.
One thing is clear — the budget will have to be tweaked before it is signed.
The LAT’s budget team reports, “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the leaders of the Assembly and Senate on Wednesday to scrap their plan to raise taxes to help close the state’s budget deficit, but the two Democrats insisted they would move ahead next week with a vote of the full Legislature.”
Mike Zapler loks at the major differences between the governor’s plan and the Democrats’ proposal . “The Democratic proposal has much in common with Schwarzenegger’s budget plan, calling for cuts to education, the social safety net and prisons. But the differences between the two approaches threatened to trigger a protracted stalemate, despite warnings that the state must pass a budget soon to avoid running out of money next month.
California is imposing a 90-day moratorium on housing foreclosures under a new law that took effect Monday.
The California Foreclosure Prevention Act, or Assembly Bill X2 7, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 
February, is meant to push banks and loan servicers into lowering mortgage payments of homeowners in financial trouble. Lenders must prove they tried to modify the delinquent loans before they can begin foreclosing. The California program reflects a similar to the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program that began in March.
But supporters acknowledge the California Foreclosure Prevention Act won’t stop thousands of foreclosures from eventually happening. There have been more than 365,000 foreclosures in California since early 2007, with many more already scheduled.
While the latest moratorium is an effort by lawmakers to slow the tide and give homeowners every possible means of saving their home, it is important to remember: this does NOT immediately stop foreclosures.
Lenders and loan servicers that already have a comprehensive and systematic loan modification program in place are exempt from the law. Such programs call for loans to be modified by lowering interest rates for at least five years, deferring or reducing part of the principal, or providing up to 40 years to repay the loan.
For more information go to the California Department of Corporations site where the official regulations spelling out the program are listed in detail.
These annual figures are based on multiple national Gallup surveys conducted each year, in some cases encompassing more than 40,000 interviews. The 2009 data are based on 10 separate surveys conducted from January through May. Thus, the margins of error around each year’s figures are quite small, and changes of only two percentage points are statistically significant.
To measure political ideology, Gallup asks Americans to say whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal. As has been the case each year since 1992, very few Americans define themselves at the extremes of the political spectrum. However, “Conservatives” are still the single largest ideological group.
The bottom line from Gallup: Although the terms may mean different things to different people, Americans readily peg themselves, politically, into one of five categories along the conservative-to-liberal spectrum. At present, large minorities describe their views as either moderate or conservative — with conservatives the larger group — whereas only about one in five consider themselves liberal.
Monday’s the deadline for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to close a $24.3 billion deficit so the state controller can get emergency loans to help California avoid running out of cash next month. But the budget deficit remains far from being solved, and without a solution the state will probably be forced to delay payments to local governments, vendors and others at the end of July.
The deadline itself became moot last week when Schwarzenegger refused to allow Controller John Chiang to take out emergency short-term loans. Instead, the governor gave the Legislature an ultimatum: Solve the budget, or shut down government operations.
From Monday on, Schwarzenegger said, every day that passes without closing the deficit is a step toward insolvency.
“Now, the controller has already said that the deadline is June 15th,” the governor said Friday in a public appearance in Escondido (San Diego County). “In fact, this week I sat down with the controller and also with the treasurer. We all agreed that after June 15th, every day of inaction jeopardizes our state’s solvency and our ability to pay schools and teachers and to keep hospitals and ERs open.”
The state’s priorities for getting things paid fall in this order: education and debt payment, special funds, pension obligations, payroll and Medi-Cal payments.
Tic toc on the solvency clock: Only 47 days left to MELTDOWN!
State Controller John Chiang released the state revenue report for May today, and bottom line: Things are getting worse.
Underscoring the severity of California’s cash crisis, Controller John Chiang, who has previously warned the state’s government risks running out of cash without a budget deal, said revenues in May fell by $1.14 billon, or 17.7 percent, from a year earlier.
Additionally, the revenues of the government of the most populous U.S. state fell short of estimates in Schwarzenegger’s budget plan by $827 million, Chiang said.
He warned California’s state government is speeding toward a financial disaster unless officials act urgently to balance its books.
“Without immediate solutions from the governor and legislature, we are less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government,” Chiang said in a statement.
Reuters has more on the story here.
One of California’s most powerful union groups is spending $1 million in a television advertising blitz to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to solve the state’s budget crisis with both spending cuts and new taxes.
As recently noted, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee Union is circulating pledge forms to lawmakers that might have attracted takers in budget battles past. The union wants the legislators to sign statements of support for up to $44 billion in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco and other industries, products and people.
The ad will begin airing starting today in the Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego media markets and essentially challenges Schwarzenegger’s claim that voters who rejected the May 19 special election budget reform initiatives were casting votes against new taxes.
“Senate Democrats unveiled a budget plan Tuesday that would stave off the deepest proposed cuts to California’s health, welfare and student-aid programsby dipping heavily into the rainy-day fund (RDF) that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants set aside in case the economy continues to sour,” the LAT’s Shane Goldmacher reports.
The Senate Democrats’ plan he outlined would save those programs largely by tapping into a $4.5-billion reserve included in Schwarzenegger’s budget. The Schwarzenegger administration has argued that the money should be tucked away in case the economy continues to suffer or program costs exceed those budgeted, such as for fighting wildfires. Democrats would lower the reserve to as little as $500 million.
It would appear that in exchange for dipping into the proposed RDF Senate Democrats are willing to accept $13 billion of $16 billion in cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, (D-Sacramento) said they also would back $8 billion in other solutions – largely funding shifts and accelerated personal and corporate tax withholding (aka more budget gimmicks)– that the governor has proposed to close a $24.3 billion deficit.
States use rainy day funds (RDFs), or budget stabilization funds, as a cushion against financial shocks. All states with RDFs regulate deposits into and withdrawals out of those funds. Most states build RDFs through the deposit of year-end surpluses. Withdrawal rules generally specify that funds may only be used to cover budget shortfalls or emergencies when authorized by the governor or legislature.
Schwarzenegger declared the Democrats’ approach to dealing with the state’s projected $24-billion deficit “hallucinatory.”
In a year of multibillion-dollar deficit, major program cuts and mandatory salary reductions for state and Capitol workers, state legislators still make a rather nice living.
Four of every five lawmakers are accepting full pay of $116,208. Besides salary, lawmakers are entitled to about $35,000 annually in tax-free per diem for living expenses, plus use of a leased vehicle, with gasoline and maintenance. Only seventeen of the 120 legislators have rejected the car and six have turned down per diem.
The SacBee reports that California’s legislators are the nation’s highest paid but make considerably less than many top officials of large cities, counties and school districts, records show. Upon leaving office, legislators receive no pension or health benefits.
While the Senate and Assembly have control over budgets and programs affecting millions of Californians, they can’t control the pay of their own members, which is set by an independent commission. Voter passage of Prop 112 nearly two decades ago created an independent panel of gubernatorial appointees to set salaries for lawmakers and constitutional officers. The commission voted last month to impose an 18 percent pay cut, which would drop legislators’ salaries by $20,917 annually – from $116,208 to $95,291.
But there’s a catch: California’s constitution allows state officeholders’ salaries to rise – but not fall – in the middle of their terms, so the pay cut cannot be imposed until December 2010 for 100 lawmakers and 2012 for 20 others. However, lawmakers can impose their own pay cut by requesting that the State Controller issue a deduction.
In fact three legislators immediately cut their salaries by the 18 percent approved by the pay commission – Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-Monterey Park; Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria; and Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach.
Are all legislative leaders likely to volunteer to take an 18 percent pay cut before it’s required by law? No. But if they did, it would transform Californians’ perceptions of state leaders – showing them as actual leaders. It would create a sense that we are all in this together.
Instead they continue to forge a two tiered system that demonstrates what’s good for the gander is not good for the goose. They have shown a willingness to quickly end welfare-to work programs and eliminate health insurance for 1 million children from low-income families. They have demonstrated a willingness to cut the pay of teachers, public safety officers and government workers – yet they seem unwilling to suffer alongside the common man. Then again, perhaps its harder than I think to live on a mere $150,000 a year.
And who knows — next time legislative leaders go out on a limb to craft a compromise on a budget, as they tried to do with the May 19 propositions, voters might actually respect them enough to pass it.
When the topic of off-shore drilling comes up, it’s difficult to forget Cosco Busan and the disastrous global spills which followed. However, new technology has significantly decreased the risks of off-shore drilling allowing for more ![ENERGY: OIL [ENE:OIL]](http://sacramentocitizen.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/offshore1.jpg?w=300&h=200 "ENERGY: OIL [ENE:OIL]")
efficient extraction of the resource with little risk. Now California’s budget deficit has once again ignited talks of off-shore drilling.
An estimated 18 billion barrels of oil are believed to lie below off-limits coastal waters within 50 miles of land. In fact approximately 95% of the known reserves off the coast of California are less than 50 miles out – but currently off limits. In addition to these massive oil reserves, there lies an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas just off shoreline.
“The Schwarzenegger administration has not given up hopes of renewing off-shore oil drilling as part of the budget deal . Capitol Weekly’s John Howard reports, “An attempt to make an end-run around the three-member State Lands Commission and place authority over offshore oil leasing in the hands of the governor’s budget-writing office is being pushed by the Schwarzenegger administration over the opposition of many environmentalists, the commission itself and Democrats who represent coastal areas.
“This project is good for California,” Tom Sheehy, a ranking official of the state Department of Finance, said at a recent Lands Commission hearing about the lease sought by Plains Exploration & Production, or PXP, a Texas-based independent oil and natural gas producer. The company wants to drill slant wells through from a federal platform just outside state waters off Santa Barbara County.
The plan, which would be in effect through 2022, is known as the Tranquillon Ridge project. And according to the governor’s office in May, allowing the project would bring $100 million in revenue in 2009-2010 and $1.8 billion over the next 14 years.
The State Lands commission rejected the proposal on a partisan, 2-1 vote earlier this year.
“In the wake of the Commission’s decision, a new effort has emerged in the Capitol to get the project approved. A draft of bill language is circulating before the budget conference committee that would take authority over the lease away from the State Lands Commission – which has handled offshore oil leases since 1938 – and give it instead to Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance.”
For the average citizen, California’s budget debacle is providing tremendous insights into some of the reasons California faces such a difficult task in digging its way out of a massive budget hole.
Example 1A, political influence of the unions. Today the LA Times takes a look at how California’s budget crisis has opened a rift between unions and Democrats. One of the more intriguing quotes from the story was this:
The union leaders say they are appalled that Democratic leaders are talking openly now about decimating government programs without first making a stand for bigger, broader tax hikes that could substantially offset budget cuts.
Apparently the unions weren’t part of the majority electorate that rejected Propositions 1A through 1E on May 19th. Propss 1A through 1E would have increased taxes by $16 billion and were defeated by a nearly two-to-one margin.
Despite the defeat, the the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee Union is circulating pledge forms to lawmakers that might have attracted takers in budget battles past. The union wants the legislators to sign statements of support for up to $44 billion in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco and other industries, products and people.
The story is a vivid demonstration of how the Capitol’s usual political alliances – which some argue have helped wrought the current fiscal climate - are being tested by the state’s severe financial problems as interest groups scramble to hold onto as much as possible of the state’s shrinking coffers.
The other side of the story is pointed out by Reason Online. The free market think tank believes that finding places to cut costs without reducing the state to post-apocalyptic squalor is not the difficult task some lawmakers would make out to be. As explained in California’s political newspaper Capital Weekly last week:
[N]ew revenue estimates released by the Department of Finance this week place the state’s general fund revenues at $85.9 billion—nearly $4 billion higher than they were just five years ago.Even with the depleted funds caused by plunging home prices and a global economic slowdown, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget is still larger than his first budget in the 2004-05 budget year.But in that first budget year, state spending was at $79.8 billion. Over the next two years, state spending jumped by more than 21 percent, to more than $101.4 billion in the 2006-07 budget year.
The world politic is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, as the current budget battle continues to unfold - for the average concerned taxpayer - it will provide new insights into the realities of Calfiornia politics.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reminded a commission now studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system that no idea should be off the table. Still facing a $24 billion deficit, California must cut expenses or find some new money — or both — and must do it before the month is out.
The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like “straight tax.” The Governor suggested a 15% rate.
There are two principal arguments for a flat tax—growth and fairness. Many economists are attracted to the idea because the current tax system, with its high rates and discriminatory taxation of saving and investment, reduces growth, destroys jobs, and lowers incomes. By dramatically lowering rates and ending the tax code’s bias against saving and investment, it would boost the economy’s performance when compared with the present tax code.
Shifting California to a flat tax system is not a new idea. Previously the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in California, released the results of a study to determine a revenue-neutral flat income tax rate for California. The report found that a 3 percent flat income tax for all Californians would help smooth the revenue roller-coaster from economic booms and busts. Coupled with the elimination of current tax loopholes, PRI suggested that a 3% rate could result in an extra $10 billion flow into the state coffers. That’s virtually half the current deficit.
The flat tax does have its detractors who suggest that a it taxes the wealthy at the same rates as the poor. Of course for those who don’t find the flat tax agreeable, there is always the Fair Tax.
Working to close a $24 billion dollar deficit, Capitol Weekly now reports that Legislative leaders are considering forced furloughs for more than 2,000 Capitol staffers. Each furlough day per month would amount to a 4.5 percent pay cut.
Capitol sources said the possibility of furloughs was floated privately among the leadership of both houses. Legislative employees, unlike most Civil Service, state-government workers, are not subject to collective bargaining agreements. Capitol workers could be furloughed through administrative action not requiring legislation.
Yet as Legislative leaders consider furloughs for staff, one item seems to remain off radar – per diem. The average legislative and executive staff salary is $63,790, yet as one might imagine State legislators annual salary rates slightly higher. Lawmakers earn $116,098 a year plus $173 in tax free per diem for each day they are in session. This “desk” per diem, as it’s called, is designed to cover the cost of keeping a second home in Sacramento.
The current rate was increased in October from the prior rate of $170. Even then California’s economy, jobs, revenues and budget were hurting, but that did not stop the state Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board from slightly raising the per diem rate.
The Board is required by state law to set per diem no lower than the rate paid to federal employees traveling to Sacramento, currently $173. For the state’s 120 Assembly and Senate members, the increased rate adds about $600 per year to their checkbook — maybe more, maybe less, depending upon the duration of a legislative year. For taxpayers, the hike amounts to about $72,000 annually.
Republican state Sen. Tom Harman has formally declared his intentions to run for attorney general in 2010. Senator Harman made his announcement official via the following YouTube announcement:
Also eyeing the race is former state Senator, Republican Chuck Poochigian, who lost to current Attorney General Jerry Brown in 2006.
The expected Democratic field includes District Attorney Kamala Harris, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico of Newark. Assemblymen Ted Lieu of Torrance and Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara as well as former lawmaker Joseph Canciamilla of Pittsburg are also considering a run at the office.
A legislative budget committee voted unanimously Wednesday to eliminate state agencies altogether, taking dead aim at an administrative layer of gubernatorial bureaucracy that oversees most of the state’s departments.
The 10-member panel — six Democrats and four Republicans — also voted to eliminate the Office of the Secretary of Education, which lawmakers said is unnecessary because the state already has an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education.
The Governor recommended last month that lawmakers consolidate more than a dozen boards and commissions to save $50 million. Schwarzenegger also began laying off 5,000 rank-and-file state workers. The Legislature’s move Wednesday appeared to be a sharp retort directed at higher-paid administrative appointees who oversee the departments that provide direct state services.
Under the agencies move, the state would dismantle at least eight offices, from the State and Consumer Services Agency to the Environmental Protection Agency, and eliminate any duplicative administrative positions. The committee did not know how many positions would be eliminated or how much money would be saved and asked the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office to report to the Legislature on how far the Legislature could cut.
Schwarzenegger told lawmakers Tuesday that they should eliminate the Integrated Waste Management Board as a first matter of course before making any other cuts. The board would save the state no general fund dollars, but it has become an easy target because it contains ex-legislators who earn six-figure salaries while serving on the board.
The budget conference committee on Tuesday instead recommended that the state eliminate the Department of Conservation and the Department of Toxics Control while moving their functions to the Integrated Waste Management Board (IMWB). The committee also recommended that the IWMB members become part-time and take reduced pay.
“Every year, the governor tries to eliminate and consolidate a number of boards, commissions and departments, and every year the Legislature rejects that,” said Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear. “We’re thrilled the Legislature is joining the governor’s call to make government more efficient and cost effective and we look forward to debating with the Legislature in the coming days which proposals make the most sense.”
A severe spike in aggravated assaults resulted in an increase in violent crimes for Elk Grove in 2008, the FBI reported 
Monday. Nationwide, violent crime was down 2.5 percent from 2007 figures, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report.
Even as violent crime dropped throughout much of the region, the numbers suggest that Elk Grove was consumed by a crime wave that managed to skip most large U.S. cities, experiencing a 50 percent increase in aggravated assaults. According to Elk Grove Police, a large percentage of the aggravated assaults are related to domestic violence situations involving family members.
Regarding the sharp increase Elk Grove Police Officer Christopher Trim made the following statement:
In order to determine why there has been an increase in the number of assaults, we need at least two years worth of statistical data to review. A one-year blip does not make a pattern or trend. There are many different factors that shape crime in each city and at this point, it is too early to pinpoint the reason for the increase.
All told, Elk Grove saw more than one assault per day during the last year, with domestic violence accounting for many of the attacks.
The Sacramento Bee has posted an interactive map of Elk Grove assaults from March 2008 to March 2009 HERE.
Since defeat of the propositions on May 19, the Golden State governor has said he will respect the “will of the voters” 
but will have to bring forth the consequences surfaced from the voters’ rejection. After a week-and-a-half of budget meetings – this morning Schwarzenegger, speaking before a relatively unusual joint session of the Legislature and other constitutional officers, discussed what programs will be terminated.
Declaring that “California’s day of reckoning is here,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that California’s budget crisis will require a transformation in state government and creates an opportunity to make government more efficient.
Among the reforms he said should be enacted are:
• Making school textbooks available in digital formats, freeing “hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to hire teaches and reduce class sizes.“
• Using privately run correctional facilities as part of an effort to reduce the cost of prisons.
• Giving local governments more opportunity to run things without interference from Sacramento.
• Giving school districts more flexibility “and not tie their hands with strict rules like who is allowed to mow the lawn or fix the roof or do the plumbing.”
Schwarzenegger also repeated his earlier calls for the abolition of some state boards and commissions, which he called “redundant,” and selling off some state property.
The governor’s speech comes just four months after he and lawmakers agreed to a two-year budget package that was intended to close a deficit of $42 billion through mid-2010.
You can view the text of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s speech to the Legislature HERE.
In the midst of a $24.3 BILLION river of red, yesterday the California State Senate took a few moments to reject one of the legislative session’s most controversial bills, aimed at encouraging — or perhaps compelling — dog and cat owners to have their animals neutered.
Proponents argue that each year nearly one million unwanted cats and dogs are born in California. Left un-spayed and un-neutered, these animals propagate beyond the capacity of local animal shelters, animals rescue groups and the community to accommodate them. SB 250 attempts to address the issues associated with California’s dog and cat overpopulation by increasing the state restrictions that apply to dogs and cats and their owners.
Opponents of the bill see things differently. They believe that SB 250 represents a continued trend of State interference in the personal lives of citizens and their pets. They viewed the bill as essentially a statewide mandatory spay and neuter program which presents problematic policy on several fronts:
Although most animal owners acknowledge the public health and public finance problems caused by dog and cat overpopulation, they oppose government requirements for spaying or neutering animals. While there is support for altering abandoned animals that will be released from public animal shelters, many oppose the mandatory spaying and neutering of owned animals. Yesterday’s vote on the Senate Floor seemed to reflect that sentiment.
However it is expected that the measure will recieve “Reconsideration” allowing one more opportunity for the bill to be heard and voted upon.
UPDATE June 2, 2009 @ 12:42 pm: SB 250 (Florez) affter being granted the courtesy of “reconsideration” the bill is still short of the number of votes required for passage.
Rick Moran wrote in “More evidence emerges that Chrysler Dealer closings was politically motivated,” The dealer closings were not ordered by the bankruptcy judge but by the White House. This puts a whole new light on how the dealers to be closed were chosen and, more importantly, who did it.
And Jim Hoft has found an incredible piece of information. Apparently, a politically connected group of Democrats who own six Chrysler dealerships not only were allowed to keep them, but their competition was deep sixed. Hoft has a link to a blog on the Chrysler dealer shutdowns run by Joey Smith who reports:
The company is called RLJ-McLarty-Landers, and it operates six Chrysler dealerships throughout the South. All six dealerships are safe from closing. The dealer locations are:
Bentonville, AR (northwest Arkansas)
Lee’s Summit, MO (south of Kansas City, MO)
Branson, MO
Olathe, KS (near Kansas City)
Bossier City, LA (near Shreveport)
Huntsville, ALThe interesting part is who the three main owners of the company are. The owners are Steve Landers (long-time car dealer, 4th-generation dealer), Thomas “Mack” McLarty (former Chief of Staff for President Clinton), and Robert Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television and co-owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats). Landers has given money to Republicans in the past, but McLarty campaigned for Obama in 2008, and Johnson has given countless amounts of money to Democrats over the years.
This thing is getting stinkier by the hour. And it’s starting to smell like rotten bananas – as in the tactic the White House is using is something you’d find in a central American banana republic and not the greatest nation on earth.
I wrote a piece on my own blog a while back when Chrysler dealer George Joseph wrote a letter published on AT about his own troubles with being shut down. In that piece, I made the argument that what we were seeing was not socialism, but gangsterism. And how did it happen?
It can happen because we are barking up the wrong tree when we accuse the Democrats of practicing socialism. Any Chicagoan recognizes what’s going on as pure gangsterism – the application of power through the use blackmail, threats, and pure muscle and the devil take the Constitution, the rule of law, and simple fairness.
It can happen because we’ve elected a president who aggrandizes power unto himself while running roughshod over individual rights.
He writes: “A lawyer representing a group of Chrysler dealers who are on the hit list deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters that he believes the closings have been forced on the company by the White House.
“It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn’t Chrysler’s decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President’s automotive task force,” said attorney Leonard Bellavia.
RedState.com’s Josh Painter has a useful roundup of what has been found so far by a growing number of bloggers digging into what could be a very big story indeed. Also, see my column on this issue and how it fits into the larger context dubbed by the Examiner’s Michael Barone as “gangster government.”
UPDATE II: White House car czar married to Democratic fund raiser
Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.
California’s budget deficit now stands at $24.3 BILLION. In his attempt to address the budget shortfall while avoiding a $5.5 billion ask from Wall Street, Schwarzenegger wants $5.6 billion in new cuts and has also proposed borrowing $2 billion from local governments over the next fiscal year.
According to the WSJ:
…in [Schwarzeneggers] efforts to find funds to balance the state budget, has proposed borrowing $2 billion from municipal governments over the next fiscal year, a tactic that is rankling local officials up and down the state.
Mr. Schwarzenegger is invoking a 2004 law that lets the state demand loans of 8% of property-tax revenue from cities, counties and special districts. Under the law, the state must repay the municipalities with interest within three years.
Administrators of already cash-strapped cities and counties said the loans would force even deeper cuts in services. Fewer cops and fire engines would be on the streets, they said, and parks and libraries would be closed more often. And some local governments would be forced to lay off workers to keep their budgets out of the red, they said.
The proposed borrowing would result in a $7.4 MILLION transfer from the City of Sacramento to the State General Fund coffers. A devastating hit considering the City is currently facing a $50 MILLION budget deficit of its own.
In this clip from CBS 13, California League of Cities Executive Director Chris McKenzie speaks about the potential impact of raids on local government. The clip is from May, but in light of the pending borrowing proposal it is still salient.
And Schwarzenegger isn’t done yet. The governor’s aides are expected to outline an additional $3BILLION in cuts by Friday, responding to new projections showing that the deficit is larger than he originally anticipated.
The governor’s aides will give lawmakers a briefing today on details of cuts aimed at closing a budget gap that is $24 billion wide, by some forecasts. ‘The voters sent a very clear message to Sacramento: Live within your means, cut spending, slash the size of government, get rid of the waste and the inefficiency and don’t raise taxes,’ Schwarzenegger says.
Now, the Schwarzenegger administration proposed $5.6 billion in additional spending reductions to narrow the state budget deficit in lieu of floating additional short-term loans, including elimination of the state’s welfare-to-work program known as CalWORKS.
Dropping CalWORKS would save an estimated $1.3 billion next year and is the largest single piece of a 25-item list of additional spending cuts given to a two-house committee working on the budget deficit.
The deficit has been pegged at $24.3 billion by the Legislature’s budget analyst and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had wanted to cover part of it with some loans known as “revenue anticipation warrants” or RAWs, but abandoned that strategy last week after learning that the federal government wouldn’t back the loans. Without those guarantees, obtaining financing from private lenders was uncertain.
Slashing the state prison budget by an additional $788.5 million is the second largest item on the list.
The complete list may be found here.
BREAKING: The California Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld same sex marriages that were already performed but upheld voters’ rights to uphold the state constitution banning gay marriage
At issue in the court decision were two questions about Proposition 8, which 52 percent of voters approved in November — just six months after a divided court issued its groundbreaking ruling to allow same-sex nuptials.
The first question was whether the measure amounted to an improper method of amending the state Constitution — essentially targeting a minority group by depriving gay couples of the right to marry. The second was what to do with the 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place before Proposition 8 took effect.
Justices heard arguments from both sides in March, appearing reluctant to overturn the will of the voters but also seemingly opposed to canceling any existing marriages.
Tuesday’s ruling upholds the will of California voters as expressed in Proposition 8 while at the same time validating the legal status of some 18,000 same-sex couples who were married in California between June — when the legalization took effect — and Election Day in November.
Those of us at the Sacramento Citizen would like to recognize and thank those brave souls who have given their lives for the cause of freedom.
At the very first official Memorial Day, held in 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, Union general John A. Logan said the day was “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” With those words, the thousands of spectators who had gathered that day spread out across the then-much-smaller cemetery to do just that.
For many Americans, Memorial Day marks little more than the start of summer. It’s a day off to mow the lawn, go to the pool or grill in the back yard with family and friends.
But it’s no holiday for America’s best. Memorial Day will find our troops fighting terrorists and other enemies of freedom around the globe. Therefore on May 25, let us take a moment to reflect on the sacrifices that members of our military make every day. The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains 128 national cemeteries in 39 states. Visit this link to find a cemetery in your state. Leave a flower on the grave of a soldier known or unknown to you. Take your children and explain the meaning behind this important national holiday.
On this day, we express our gratitude to those who have served or are currently serving in our Armed Forces. Your commitment and sacrifice for our country is more than appreciated, it is revered. Because so many have given so much, the United States faces a bright future of freedom and prosperity.
God bless you!
In Tuesday’s special election California voters rejected the political establishment’s $16 billion in higher taxes by a nearly two-to-one margin. Defeat of Propositions 1A through 1E means the state budget’s $15.4 billion river of red ink will deepen to a projected $21.3 billion. The current budget debacle has once again raised the governance question and resurrected an old yet still radical idea – the breaking up of California into smaller more accountable government units.
While currently garnering a great deal of buzz, this is far from a new idea. In fact it is the latest revision of 27 prior attempts with most attempts never getting far off the ground. The last serious attempt was made by Republican Assemblyman Stan Statham in the early 1990s. The most famous secession movement came in 1941, when several counties in Northern California and southern Oregon tried to form the State of Jefferson – until World War II intervened.
Two distinct prosals are circulating on the web. Former Assemblyman Bill Maze, is suggesting that two Californias are more easily governed than one. His proposal would split California in two: the conservative interior as one state and the liberal coast as another. The second proposal would split California into four distinct states with populations more typical of other US States. The political units would be:
The proposals may be little more than a political scientist’s late night fantasy and experts argue that the proposal doesn’t have a chance of working, but in what looks to be an era of reform and severe voter dissatisfaction, never say never.
California voters have crushed efforts by elected leaders to patch a gaping hole in the state budget with a package of ballot measures that included borrowing, extending $16 billion worth of taxes and promising to reform future budgets with a reserve fund and a spending cap.
Just how bad was it? You can check out the running carnage tally here, but so far:
Prop. 1A: Yes – 34, No – 66
Prop. 1B: Yes – 37, No – 63
Prop. 1C: Yes – 35, No – 65
Prop. 1D: Yes – 34, No, 66
Prop. 1E: Yes – 34, No, 66
Prop. 1F: Yes – 74, No, 26
Californian’s were all warned that if the Propositions failed the state’s economy would sink even further. To highlight that fact, last week Schwarzenegger released two dire budget plans: The most optimistic projects a $15.4 billion gap, which widens to $21.3 billion if voters reject today’s ballot measures.
Voters didn’t take the bait.
The resounding rejection Tuesday of five ballot measures meant to shore up the state’s shaky finances leaves California facing another monumental budget problem — and could hasten the arrival of a financial reckoning – one that has been put off by lawmakers time and again through band-aid budgets and budgetary shell games.
While ABC World News reported that California’s economic woes are due to our sheer size and unwillingness to raise taxes, let us be very clear: California’s current economic crisis is directly linked to lawmakers addiction to overspending.
As George Will, pointed out California government has hardly been starving for money: “If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit.” In addition, in Arnold “Schwarzenegger’s less than six years as Governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.”
Tuesday’s election was not merely a rejection of tax hikes, it was a rejection of Sacramento politics as usual. Voters have sent a clear message to Sacramento: Enough is enough. It’s time for Government – Democrats and Republicans alike – to live within their means. Tax hikes never solve budget deficits, and now that the voters have all but eliminated the option of higher taxes, it is time to reform the system and make it work for the people – not against them.
As Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth said late Tuesday night, now is the time “to end the cycle of permanent budget crises, make government work efficiently, help create new jobs and change the self-serving culture in Sacramento.”
An unending run of grim economic news has seemingly put California voters in a foul mood before Tuesday’s special election. Today’s special election arrives in the midst of a bad national economy and arrives three months after a 15 week squabble to close an earlier $42 billion shortfall.
Add in a complex set of ballot propositions and rising distrust of Sacramento politicians (approval ratings now stand at 14%), and the election is shaping up as a replay of 2005, when voters rejected every measure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election ballot.
Californian’s have all been warned that if the Propositions fail the state’s economy will sink even further. To highlight 
that fact, last week Schwarzenegger released two dire budget plans: The most optimistic projects a $15.4 billion gap, which widens to $21.3 billion if voters reject today’s ballot measures.
Hardly an inspiring message that urges citizens to the polls.
“[Voters] are having a hard time seeing how this set of ballot measures (is) going to be a part of the solution to California’s economic recovery or a solution to the budget difficulties of the state government,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California.
The measures would create a state spending cap, extend a series of tax increases, repay education funding, authorize borrowing from future lottery proceeds and transfer money from children’s and mental health programs to the state’s general fund. The only one of the six measures leading in opinion polls was Proposition 1F, which would prohibit pay raises to state elected officials during deficit years.
Californians are projected to reject the lead measure with 57% of voters opposing it, according to poll results released late Monday by the nonpartisan Survey USA. With the exception of Prop 1F, pollsters are predicting that the other measures may follow suit.
“It fair to say that the governor’s and the Legislature’s approval ratings make it more difficult for people to feel that the budget measures are needed as a solution,” said PPIC director Mark Baldassare in the Fresno Bee. “Add to that the general complexity of them and the economic uncertainty in their own lives, and it’s a difficult time for voters to accept these measures as necessary.”
Prior to an election, the Secretary of State’s Office releases a pleathora of voter registration data. With the coming California Special Election on May 19th, the Sacramento Bee has taken the liberty of composing a fun look at which cities are the most politically polarized.
Here’s how they broke down the numbers: To figure out the most conservative cities, the Sacramento Bee looked for the places with the lowest percentage of voters registered Democrat; for the most liberal, those with the lowest percentage of Republicans. To keep small numbers from masquerading as big trends, the Sacramento Bee excluded cities with fewer than 5,000 registered voters.
You can check out the SacBee’s slideshow of The most conservative and liberal cities in California here.
The California Chamber of Commerce has released their annual “Job Killer” list. The 2009 list highlights 29 legislative measures that represent what the Chamber calls a ”threat” to California’s recovering economy.
Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth commented, “the Cal Chamber is exposing bills that are most harmful to California’s economy. We must stop any legislation that causes job losses.”
The Chamber releases a list of bills annually they believe would decimate job growth in California. Among the bills on this year’s list are new health care taxes, rollbacks of workers’ compensation reform, limits on affordable housing and development, restrictions on the use of voter-approved transportation funding, and a tax on freight movement.
President of the California Chamber of Commerce, Allen Zaremberg noted that there is no more business as usual with unemployment exceeding 11 percent and burdensome regulations unique to California which adds costs for business and harms the economy.
Zaremberg said “Legislators must make job creation their top priority. A robust private sector economy will provide our state government with sufficient resources for a quality educational system and the public safety services we deserve.”
On the heels of last month’s “tea party” protests against higher government spending and the threat of higher taxes, Rasmussen recently released a new poll which shows 60% of Americans believe the government has too much power and too much money.
The oft repeated claim of conservatives is that at every level, government is too big, too inefficient, wasteful, and all too often interferes with private citizens and enterprises who want to get things done. Despite the claim, it is rare that the citizenry is presented with a state sponsored study that outlines the projected growth and development of government – in terms of square feet.
Square Footage of California’s Government
Over the last five decades, state office space occupied in the Sacramento region has grown steadily. From 2.3 million net square feet (NSF) of primarily owned space in 1960, the state office inventory in Sacramento has grown to more than 17 million NSF of occupied space in 2007. Of that 17 million, 58 percent is state-owned and 42 percent is leased.
Currently, state office space sprawls over 500 locations in the Sacramento region. Several state agencies have more than 20 different office locations in the region (e.g. Consumer Affairs, Corrections and Rehabilitation, Transportation, and Fish and Game). While the California Department of General Services notes that steps have been taken to consolidate all or portions of agencies, a great deal of fragmentation still remains. Over 60% of state office space is in the central city area. Almost 13 million NSF (or about 76%) is within five miles of the Capitol with the remainder highly dispersed throughout the region.
Sacramento Region State Office Planning Study
Since 1960 the Capitol Area Plan, the master plan for development on state-owned land surrounding the Capitol, has guided the State of California’s office presence in the Sacramento region. To guide the physical growth of government over the next 40 years, the state’s real estate manager, the Department of General Services, recently released its “Sacramento Region State Office Planning Study” [http://www.dgs.ca.gov/PlanningStudy.htm]. The first of its kind in four decades, this study will contribute to shaping the future landscape of the Sacramento area based on the state’s development projects.
The study estimates a need for another 13.7 million square feet in the capital region, far more than currently controlled by state government in the downtown core.
In other words, California will need to nearly double its office space over the next 40 years and will look to fill remaining vacant spots in Sacramento’s central core, including the rail-yards, but will also consider other areas such as suburban office campuses and the West Sacramento riverfront.
While the findings of the study could mean opportunities for landlords and developers – the massive government growth laid out in the report is not good news for California taxpayers. Already burdened with some of the highest combined state and local taxes in the nation, every new government building and program adds more weight to the burden now borne by the taxpayer.
Furthermore, the report details that several of its long-term development opportunities can be accomplished working with major redevelopment projects throughout the region. With redevelopment comes the threat of eminent domain and a greater consumption of property tax dollars. According to a 2005 LAO report, redevelopment consumes approximately 10 percent of all property taxes statewide. In 2006-2007 redevelopment agencies diverted almost $4.6 billion in property tax increment revenues from counties, cities, special districts, and school districts. The state’s General Fund must backfill the schools’ losses, at the cost of about $2 billion a year.
In Conclusion
It was 1967 when Ronald Reagan said that “the time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around.”
Before California’s government undertakes massive new spending to gobble up precious public resources and squeezes out opportunity for private industry, we should closely examine whether or not expanding the physical size of government by an additional 13.7 million square feet is truly justified. With a great deal of fragmentation still existing among current state properties, there is significant opportunity for state agencies to become more efficient and effective with their current allotted space.
