Brown Faces Desperate Budget Choice
For Jerry Brown, it’s time to put up or shut up.
As far back as last September, Brown promised voters that if he were elected, he’d put together a no-gimmicks, forward-looking spending plan, "an honest budget without the smoke and mirrors."
Well, sometime today the governor is expected to receive a budget with more smoke than a Texas barbecue and enough mirrors to fill a carnival funhouse.
And Brown will have to decide what to do with it.
You wouldn’t think it would be a hard choice. After all, in his remarks when he introduced his budget in January, Brown complained that "for 10 years this state has put together its budget with gimmicks and tricks and unrealistic expectations" and vowed it wasn’t going to happen again.
Regulatory Reform is Budget Reform
The Legislature debates the state budget today, appropriate since today is the budget deadline. A handful of determined Senate Republicans have offered a path to an election on tax extensions, contingent on Democrats agreeing to changes in laws that cramp business investment and hinder fiscal solvency.
Some may question the relevance of the business climate changes to the state’s fiscal health. I offer this: while Californian workers and even government employees have suffered under the chill of the recession, state regulatory agencies have been on a hiring binge.
Map Madness: One Tricycle, a Two-Year-Old, Two Blocks and Three Assembly Districts
My two-year-old son loves his tricycle. But his legs are too short to reach the pedals. So he propels himself by pushing off the ground with his feet -the same way Barney Rubble drove his prehistoric car in the Flintstones. This method of propulsion limits my son’s tricycle range to two blocks.
Which would be enough to take him through three Assembly districts — if the new redistricting commission maps are adopted.
It turns out my family lives in one of those neighborhoods – we’re apartment dwellers in Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile — that would be divided up multiple ways by the new maps.
Here’s how life at the seams of three districts would work, if the preliminary maps released last week become finalized.
Ulterior Motives, Bad Lawsuits Cripple Economic Growth
On June 10th, CALA released a report titled, "Ulterior Motives, How Abuse Lawsuits in California’s Central Valley Suppresses Job Growth in an Already Depressed Economy." You can read the report here. The report illustrates how abusive lawsuits are robbing the Central Valley of economic opportunities. These lawsuits are being used to shut down, delay and otherwise obstruct business growth in the economically depressed Central Valley.
California is one of the most litigious states in the country with more than one million lawsuits filed every year. For a region that has already been hit pretty hard, these lawsuits are only costing more jobs and slowing the economy even further.