Governor Jerry Brown’s answer to a reporter’s question at the budget press conference reminded me of a quick response bank robber Willie Sutton supposedly gave to the question of why he robbed banks. Said Sutton: “Because that’s where the money is.”

Brown was asked why education would be targeted for cuts if tax increase measures fail on the November ballot, and Brown basically answered: ‘Because that’s where the money is.’

Unfortunately, California voters don’t seem to be aware that the schools are at the top of the pecking order when money is handed out by Sacramento — an advantage for Brown as he gears up his tax increase campaign “to save education.”

Crossposted on CBS Sacramento

Balancing the budget of one of the largest economies in the world isn’t easy. There’s absolutely nothing you can do that won’t outrage a significant part of the electorate. That’s why Governor Brown is smart to protect his friends—teachers and government employee unions—in his latest budget proposal.

Those groups effectually run state government after funding the elections of Brown and the Democratic majority in the Legislature. They’re also the groups the Governor needs to fund his tax hike in November, which is why it is no surprise they are the only groups happy with his proposal.

K-12 education actually gets an increase in spending. SEIU President Yvonne Walker says she looks forward to negotiating the state worker cuts (with the very same elected officials she helped put into office–how nice). And according to public employee labor lawyer Tim Yeung the Governor’s Mini-Me furlough plan “(is) fairly union-friendly.” (via Jon Ortiz, Sacramento Bee).

Crossposted on National Review Online

Recently, I was driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. As I looked at the congested traffic on the decrepit highway and digested the idea that our public schools are competitive only with Mississippi and Alabama, I wondered — is that what we get for a more than 10 percent income tax, 10 percent state and local sales taxes, and the highest gas taxes in the nation?

To sum up why California has yet another deficit — this time a $16 billion whopper — is pretty easy: The number of demonized one-percenters who pay over 10 percent in their salary to the state has been shrinking, as thousands flee with their ideas, energy, business, and capital to nearby no-tax states, and others make less money due to more and more costs and regulations — while the number of those receiving all sorts of state housing, food, medical, education, and legal support is soaring. (In crude parlance, California increasingly is seen by some as a very bad deal, in terms of the sort of schools, safety, transportation, and housing per taxes paid in comparison to Reno, Tahoe, or Austin, but by far more people as a very good deal in comparison to the costs versus benefits in, for example, Oaxaca or El Salvador.)

“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” – Senator Everett M. Dirksen

JP Morgan Chase has enough egg on its face to make omelets for an entire country.  Mystery abounds.  Total trading losses may have reached $2.3 billion, and could well hit $4 billion, said the The Wall Street Journal.  What in the world happened here?!?

Chase, in an irony worthy of a Hollywood screenplay, is led by Jamie Dimon (Chairman and CEO), who is at the forefront of the charge to resist, or at least, to water down, the specter of more regulation of what banks should be able to do and what they shouldn’t be able to do.  Dimon has been quite visibly prominent on that frontier – for this to happen under his watch would be funny, if it weren’t so menacing.

What happened?  How do you lose over $2 Billion, and perhaps as much as $4 Billion dollars in the world of Big Banking?

Governor Jerry Brown’s press conference on the May budget revise served the dual purpose of revealing the new budget and kicking off his campaign to pass his tax initiative on November’s ballot. The governor wasted no time in tying the success of his budget to his initiative income and sales tax increase plan.

The governor said that things are getting better and, in an odd way, when you look back at California’s sorry budget story the last few years you can see how he makes that argument. However, the campaign to raise taxes without coupling reforms will not lead California out of the fiscal forest, which is the governor’s goal.

Crossposted on CalWatchDog

SACRAMENTO–Setting the stage for the Legislature to pass another phony majority vote budget, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown presented a bleak picture of the state’s finances today during his May Budget Revision conference, and then challenged the press to come up with a better plan.

Despite his repeated claims that he was increasing austerity by calling for higher taxes, cuts to health and welfare programs, as well as a 5 percent furlough cut to state employees, Brown’s budget cuts will still not spare taxpayers.

The governor reported that California’s budget deficit has grown to nearly $16 billion, shockingly higher than the apparent guesstimates of $9 billion in January.

For business people in the city of Los Angeles, the outlook for sunny Southern California got a little dimmer last week.

That’s because Austin Beutner, the hope of business types, dropped out of the mayor’s race Tuesday. That leaves us mostly with a gaggle of career politicians who don’t know a business asset from a hole in Wilshire Boulevard.

In many ways, Beutner was an ideal candidate. He’s an outsider who had a very successful private-sector career, yet he’s a bit of an insider who spent more than a year as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s first deputy mayor. He’s a moderate Democrat with pro-business leanings. He is wealthy enough not to be too beholden to those who would bankroll him.

The first annual California Economic Summit sponsored by California Forward and the Think Long Committee saw the answers to California’s economic and political problems rising from the regions of California. At the same time, there was a strong indictment against Sacramento leadership in its efforts to improve economic and governance matters.

Former United States Secretary of State, George Schultz, conference co-chair, said that not only should the conference attendees expect no help from Sacramento, “If Sacramento people find out we’re solving problems, they’ll come in and stop us.”

Crossposted in CalWhine

Here we go again. As frenzied as the tax-hike obsessives have been in recent months and years, Jerry Brown’s weekend warning that the 2012-13 budget is $16 billion short is sure to ramp up their intensity. So get ready for the media/Dem onslaught, folks, and prepare to be reviled.

Will Jerry Brown get lots of blame for his $4-billion-in-extra-revenue fantasy that he concocted last June? It’s made a dire situation much worse.

Will anyone in the media point out that contracts with gov unions that Jerry approved this fiscal year not only continue providing “step” increases for time on the job — in other words, just for showing up — but overall pay hikes?

Will anyone in the media point out that the people with power in this state have blocked all fundamental reforms — except the one (prisoner “realignment”) that allowed them to shift costs to the state government?