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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 6 hours ago
There's long been talk about improving California's public finances by going to a two-year budget process. Well, we've finally managed to get there, not by intent but by sheer negligence and irresponsibility. For this year, beginning this week, the Legislature's task is to close a gap of $11.3 billion in the current budget and maybe $17 billion (maybe more) in the budget year ending in June 2010 ...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 11/25/2008
By Peter Schrag Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's proposal for a University of California tuition policy that would allow Berkeley to charge nearly $2,000 a year more than other campuses is another reminder of the worst-kept secret in California education: Some UC campuses are more equal than others. What Birgeneau called...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 11/25/2008
Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's proposal for a University of California tuition policy that would allow Berkeley to charge nearly $2,000 a year more than other campuses is another reminder of the worst-kept secret in California education: Some UC campuses are more equal than others. What Birgeneau called for, in a document called "Access and Excellence," was discretion for each of the system's...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 11/18/2008
By Peter Schrag Last week, the state Chamber of Commerce sent another unsurprising "don't" letter to the governor and Legislature: Don't raise taxes on oil extraction; don't increase taxes on the sale of wine and beer; don't impose sales taxes on services and entertainment. Don't, don't, don't. But there wasn't...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 11/18/2008
Last week, the state Chamber of Commerce sent another unsurprising "don't" letter to the governor and Legislature: Don't raise taxes on oil extraction; don't increase taxes on the sale of wine and beer; don't impose sales taxes on services and entertainment. Don't, don't, don't. But there wasn't a word about how California could get itself out of its $28 billion budget hole, or whatever it has by now...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 11/11/2008
By Peter Schrag It's just a little over five years since "Lexington," the pseudonymous American columnist in the respected British journal The Economist, dismissed California as "the left out coast." "California," he wrote in April 2003, "has always prided itself on getting to the future first – on pioneering the...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 11/11/2008
It's just a little over five years since "Lexington," the pseudonymous American columnist in the respected British journal The Economist, dismissed California as "the left out coast." "California," he wrote in April 2003, "has always prided itself on getting to the future first on pioneering the suburban affluence of the 1950s, the tax-cutting revolution of the 1970s and the high-tech boom of the...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 11/04/2008
By Peter Schrag By now, Californians should be used to wall-to-wall political campaigns. Today will be the 10th statewide election we've had since the 2002 primary, and chances are good we'll have an 11th next year. But in this great state of now, we may have to get used to...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 11/04/2008
By now, Californians should be used to wall-to-wall political campaigns. Today will be the 10th statewide election we've had since the 2002 primary, and chances are good we'll have an 11th next year. But in this great state of now, we may have to get used to wall-to-wall state budgeting as well. This week, even before all the slimy floors have been washed and the detritus recycled and almost certainly...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 10/28/2008
By Peter Schrag "Nobody ever went broke," Henry Mencken supposedly said, "underestimating the intelligence of the American people." It's not certain he ever did say it. But nothing seems quite as apt for the weeks just before an election. The political hucksters have been counting on it for decades, and...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 10/28/2008
"Nobody ever went broke," Henry Mencken supposedly said, "underestimating the intelligence of the American people." It's not certain he ever did say it. But nothing seems quite as apt for the weeks just before an election. The political hucksters have been counting on it for decades, and they're not going broke. As usual, the last weeks' political ads on television, in the papers and in the mailers...
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 10/21/2008
By Peter Schrag Even if the nation's financial system hadn't melted down when it did, everybody had to know that the budget that the Legislature passed and the governor signed last month was a fantasy of fudges, borrowing, wild exaggeration and just plain denial. The most sympathetic explanation is that...
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Sacramento Bee (Free subscription) | 10/21/2008
Even if the nation's financial system hadn't melted down when it did, everybody had to know that the budget that the Legislature passed and the governor signed last month was a fantasy of fudges, borrowing, wild exaggeration and just plain denial.
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California Progress Report (Free subscription) | 10/23/2008
By Peter Schrag According to the best estimates, the big money campaign for Proposition 8, the initiative banning gay marriage, has collected over $9.4 million from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), roughly 46 percent of the $20 million-plus raised in large contributions so far....
