Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of the budget passed by the Democratic majority in the legislature, (as draconian in terms of gutting public resources as any in the nation), has tipped his hand: Jerry’s triangulating. He’s aligning himself with the Republican minority in forging a path forward out of California’s deep crisis. “We need four...
In California today there is zero respect for members of the Assembly or State Senate. Everybody hates them. The colossal failure of our elected “leaders” to deal humanely with the state’s finances cancels out any effort by well-meaning legislators who might be trying to do the right thing. The Republicans, who control the state’s...
One Republican candidate who wants to be California’s next governor is Steve Poizner, whose economic prescriptions for healing the state’s fiscal maladies are like a quack doctor who “bleeds” his patient by attaching leeches. Poizner’s PR people came up with a catchy “10-10-10″ slogan. He throws up three arbitrary numbers to brand his economic...
The billionaire former CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, has formally announced her candidacy to run for governor of California. Her “platform” (if one can call it that) is nothing short of a scorched earth campaign against the public sector she seeks to manage. She wants to fire 40,000 state workers, slash another $15 billion...
There’s an ancient saying that we do not inherit our society from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children. On July 21, the California State University Board of Trustees approved a fee increase requiring undergraduate students this fall to pay $4,026 a year, an increase of about $1,000 over the previous year, (and...
Bad things happen when those in power lack seriousness. Not long ago we had a Republican president who told Iraqi insurgents: “Bring ‘em on!” Now we have a Republican governor in California who sees the state’s current budget catastrophe as nothing but a big joke. Why else would Arnold Schwarzenegger post a tasteless Twitter...
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, amidst the worst economic depression in seventy years, demands that the state legislature dismantle what he calls the state’s “luxury model” social programs. To justify his budget cutting zeal he has repeatedly sounded the alarm that we’re in the midst of an economic catastrophe. But nothing will shake his religious...
Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that the test of our nation was “not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might be married to a Kennedy but his governing philosophy is pure George W....
Class Warfare Heats Up in California
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently submitted a “budget” to the legislature that eliminates CalWORKS, the state’s highly successful welfare-to-work program that is needed now more than ever. This move would make California the only state in the nation to dismantle its safety net. He’s even willing to throw away the federal matching funds CalWORKS...
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