Brown denounces budget gimmicks
For those who thought Gov.-elect Brown’s budget forum in Sacramento last week was the same old – same old, think again. Here is a dense but fascinating slide prepared by the Department of Finance. It catalogs more than $66 billion in budget “solutions” that have helped create, extend and even worsen the deficit. Far from having cut the budget to the bone over the past three years, as many legislative leaders assert, taxpayers have been victims of a massive shell game.
The implication of this chart is that budget gimmicks have had a more corrosive impact on the state’s budget health than even the recession. They have permitted the Legislature to spend money – money they did not have – for years without coming to terms with the structural deficit. But the meta-message is just as compelling. By condemning this approach to patching the budget, the Gov.-elect has essentially foresworn their use – or at least made it politically much more difficult to take advantage of them in the future.
That is progress.
Declare a Jobs Emergency in California
Yesterday, State Senate and Assembly members were sworn into office including 29 freshman members of the Legislature. Governor-elect Jerry Brown and the new Legislature are immediately faced with a 12.4 percent unemployment rate and a $26 billion budget deficit. How lawmakers will meet the challenge of making additional cuts to key programs while finding acceptable ways to generating new revenue without hurting private sector job creation is the question that they and all Californians are asking.
The road to California’s economic and budget recovery is littered with roadblocks, including a partisan chasm between legislators in Sacramento. Despite their political leanings, politicians must contend with a public that chooses spending cuts over tax hikes, and at the same time opposes most of the specific cuts that could close the gap.
The Writer Reinvents Him(Her)self – Again
What do journalists and elevator operators have in
common? (Hint: This is not an "ups and downs" joke.)
But
first a few words from the star of this blog, author Adair Lara: "All journalists aspire to write books, which many consider the blue
ribbon of our profession."
Yes,
in today’s expanding world of blogs, tweets and instant messages, the publication
of a book still gives writers a legitimacy unrivaled by any other achievement. Newspapers are out of date within a day;
tweets within minutes. (If they’re really memorable.) Blogs are archived but surfers rarely go back
to find waves that have already crested.
It
wasn’t long ago that even books had fairly short lives: The vast majority were out of print within
two years and one had to turn to garage sales or to the pipe-smoking
book-seller (there was one in every town) who specialized in finding rare
manuscripts.
Lincoln Is In
That’s Abraham Lincoln, the country’s 16th president, who has been receiving a lot of attention lately in popular culture. Which of course leads me to another shameless promotion of my mystery novel, Lincoln’s Hand.
You’ll forgive me, I hope, but its Friday, the political season is winding down, the Governor-elect is taking a pause between his budget meetings, and I know people are looking for presents to add joy to the holidays, so I thought I’d remind you of Lincoln’s Hand.
My mystery is in good company. Recently, Steven Spielberg announced hiring Daniel Day Lewis to play Lincoln in a big screen adaption of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best selling book, “A Team of Rivals.”