One Year….and Counting
Today marks the first anniversary of Fox and Hounds Daily.
Our goal in creating this site was to bring together varying voices to debate and illuminate the issues affecting business and politics in California.
Our best-read pieces didn’t hone to a specific political ideology or theme. Jon Coupal’s argument for shared sacrifice from the public sector and supporting furloughs for public employees proved extremely popular, as did Allan Hoffenblum’s view of the falling fortunes of the California Republican Party and Chandra Sharma’s business take on building a football stadium in Los Angeles.
Our readers clearly have multiple interests.
May 19th Winners and Losers
Bring on the autopsy. If the polling is any indication, California voters will defeat the five budget balancing measures, Propositions 1A through 1E, on May 19. Not only do both the Field and PPIC polls show the measures losing, but opinion seems to be hardening against them. According PPIC, those voters following the measures closest are the most vigorously opposed. Fifty two percent of likely voters oppose Proposition 1A, the spending cap/tax measure. But among those following the measure most closely, 65 percent are opposed and only 29 percent are in favor.
If the measures go down, two factors will be at play. The voters do not seem to believe the legislature is capable of reforming itself, thus they are unimpressed with the “rainy day” spending cap Gov. Schwarzenegger and proponents have pushed so hard for.
Now the Governor knows how the Bank and Auto CEOs feel
This probably isn’t what Mac Taylor had in mind.
When giving advice on solving the state’s desperate cash flow crisis, the state’s Legislative Analyst acknowledged that federal loan guarantees could be helpful, but cautioned about accepting federal help with strings attached:
“We recommend that the Legislature agree to no substantial diminishment in the role of California’s elected state leaders. In our opinion, the difficult decisions to balance the state’s budget now are preferable to Californians losing some control over the state’s finances and priorities to federal officials for years to come.”
Well guess what, the puppet master has already appeared , and it’s not cash flow that’s on the line, but nearly $7 billion in federal stimulus funds. Turns out that one of the budget cuts hammered out by the Governor and legislative leadership, saving $74 million by reducing the pay of home care workers, has run afoul of the powerful union that represents these workers.