After Unusual Joint Legislative Session, is there a Budget Deal to be Made?
There was not a lot of new information on California’s dire fiscal crisis laid out by speakers before an unusual joint session of the legislature yesterday. And from the questions from the floor to Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Controller John Chiang, Finance Department head Mike Genest and Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, there seemed to be little give in the partisan divide on how to solve the problem.
So where do we go from here?
If the four speakers’ unified message is correct, and no one challenged the numbers directly, then where the state goes from here is down, down, down.
Lockyer probably made the most news revealing that, in less than ten days, he is prepared to cut off funding for infrastructure improvements like roads and highways. Chiang talked about the state’s lack of ability to borrow and the need to pay vendors with IOUs by the Spring. Taylor pointed out that solving the deficit problem by increasing sales, income and corporate taxes would make all three categories of taxation the highest in the nation.
Rep. Gohmert’s Tax Holiday Idea – Intriguing!
The idea of having a Tax Holiday for all Americans, instead of just giving away another $350 Billion to the FatCats, is the brainchild of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)–Check out Human Events for Rep Gohmert’s 12/5/08 piece titled: “Help Me Give America a Tax Holiday.” Gohmert is a former Judge, now Congressman, whose Texas district sits atop the legendary East Texas oil field, largest in the continental US, and who sits on three House committees: Judiciary, Committee on Resources and Small Business.
Taxpayers Have Been Compromising for Years
Another week, another special session of the Legislature.
California faces a nearly $30 billion shortfall over the next year
and a half and, to address this crisis, last month the governor
leaned on the outgoing legislators to stay to the final hour in the
hopes of coming up with a solution that included both spending cuts
and tax increases.
Because the special session ended in stalemate, the governor
declared a “state of fiscal emergency” and has called on members of
the new Legislature, who took office December 1, to try again.
Although many lawmakers are carryovers from the previous session,
Schwarzenegger is repeating his mantra that Democrats and
Republicans must leave their ideology at the door. Democrats don’t
want to cut spending and Republicans don’t want to raise taxes, he
says, and the parties must reach a compromise.
Are Academics BS in BCS rankings?
With the holidays quickly approaching, it’s time to address America’s annual December controversy, college football’s selection of the top team in the nation (a.k.a., the BCS).
As an older sibling and parent, I know that there is no such thing as perfect fairness. But the BCS could do more to create a more level playing field to reflect the academic imbalances among teams.
You have to be an MIT grad to understand the imperfect formula employed by the BCS to calculate (weekly) the most recent records, margins of victory, and strengths of schedules of each team. Then, polls of sportswriters and coaches are factored in, and the two top-ranked teams play for the national championship.
What is missing from the formula are the academic standards of each school, particularly how academically challenging it is to be accepted. This has a direct impact on recruiting, as Stanford and UCLA, who lead the Pac-10 conference in acceptance requirements, have discovered in recent years. Many of their prospects have instead enrolled at Arizona St., Oregon St., and even Cal.