Budget making back to the future…
In an era when more and more Californians are demanding accountability and transparency in government, our budgeting process has slid back into the cloaked era of the past.
Fifty years ago, the California budget was put together in a back room. Those in attendance included the Department of Finance representing the Governor; the budget committee chairs and vices chairs representing the legislative leadership; and the legislative analyst. The budget they created was then handed the legislature for approval and finally sent to the governor. These budgets usually garnered 2/3 of the legislative vote, and nobody knew what deals went into the process until after the governor signed the budget in question.
In the early 1970’s, a group of lawmakers revolted and pushed for a more open process. This led to more transparent and later televised legislative discussions that included the administration and legislative analyst.
Letter from Brussels, Part 2: Non Papers and Non English
Californians are such amateurs when it comes to
bureaucratic-speak. The pros are overseas.
Visiting
the European Union, as I did this week, is disorienting for an American.
Everyone appears to be speaking English, or at least using English words for
everything. But you can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s European
bureaucratese, spoken by people using English at once as a second language and
as a defense mechanism. Actual words spoken to me in Brussels: "We are
conventioning for human rights to conversation."
I sort of
think I know what that means.
And then there’s EU’s reliance on
"non-paper."
The
non-paper isn’t a European invention. The term has long been used in diplomacy
to refer to an unofficial message. But in Brussels, non-papers are everywhere
and appear to be the default mode of communication, used for messages and
policies that go beyond anything sensitive or diplomatic.
Enough of Playing Chicken with the National Debt Ceiling!
If Congress is looking forward to their annual Summer Recess,
they had better think twice, and then a third time. We are told that we shall hit the National
Debt Ceiling in early August. The closer
we get, the more nervous we are making international investors.
Want to see our interest rates rise? Do nothing.
Want to risk international fiscal chaos? Do nothing.
The IMF has released a statement urging the most expeditious
raising of the National Debt Ceiling.
Confronting the unthinkable – our government will be unable to pay its
bills – why are we playing this insane game of Chicken? Half a Billion dollars of our Debt has to be
rolled over in early August – how do we expect to borrow more money if we
default, or, and here’s the critically important part, if we even make
investors think that we even could
default on our National Debt.
A Jobs Agenda, Now
We are in trouble. National unemployment is over 9 percent. When we count the underemployed, and those who have quit looking for jobs, we reach the devastating reality that 1 in 5 is out of productive work. Labor force participation for blacks, Hispanics, youth, and middle aged Americans all lag even further behind.
1 in 4 Americans owes more on their mortgage than their home is worth. Entire towns and rural areas display blight. Home foreclosures and for-sale signs are common even in the most well-to-do neighborhoods. The Central Valley of California is now the new dust bowl, owing to federal water regulations which prize a one-inch delta smelt fish over the livelihoods of agriculture families.
Worker wages are not going up. Business capital is being invested abroad in no small part due to federal and state bureaucrats that have been over-regulating and pouring “sand in the gears” of the free enterprise system. Can anyone name a city in any state (save Texas) where one may get a construction permit in less than 8 months?
The Doc Holliday Principle
In the film "Tombstone," lawman Wyatt
Earp, his brothers, and his friend Doc Holliday confront a
violent outlaw gang. But Doc has tuberculosis – of which he will die at age 36
– and should be resting. A member of the posse asks Holliday why he’s doing
this. Doc replies, "Wyatt’s my friend." The man says, "Hell, I’ve got lots of
friends." Doc replies, "I don’t." Here we have the first part of the Doc
Holliday Principle:
When
trouble comes, it’s not how many friends you have that counts – it’s what kind
of friends they are.