The accounting errors, omissions and misdeeds of the California Air Resources Board are the truest symbol of where California’s government stands today.

Our state’s government lacks leadership, truth, transparency and accountability. Everywhere we look in Sacramento these virtues are in desperately short supply  After months of battling the many transgressions of the California Air Resources Board, the deal reached between industry and CARB seems to indicate that honesty and facts can and does still have a place in government decision making – but only when the stakeholders are prepared to fight tooth and nail for it.

As CEO of an organization representing hundreds of California contractors subject to CARB regulations, we watched in wonder and awe as zeal replaced science while billions of dollars were spent, perhaps in vain. Again and again, our industry’s reward for attempting to insert a voice of reason was rewarded with the label of obstructionist and abusers of the environment and public health.

Barbara Boxer decried the loss of manufacturing jobs to other states and other countries, but the exodus of American manufacturing jobs has much to do with her job-killing policies that have made it harder and more costly for manufacturers to operate in the United States.

Boxer voted for more than $1 trillion in higher taxes, she voted for a health care bill that actually jeopardizes the benefits manufacturers offer our employees and she championed a cap-and-trade bill that threatened to kill 850,000 jobs in just five years. Boxer also voted against the free trade agreements that would have helped open up new markets for our country’s manufacturing companies. Barbara Boxer’s newfound interest in fighting for manufacturers is the epitome of election-year pandering, and California manufacturers simply won’t stand for it.

Orange County based pollster Adam Probolsky released a poll stating Meg Whitman’s illegal immigrant maid controversy is having only a small impact on the race.

Testing 519 voters, the poll reveals nearly 65% of the voters say the issue makes no difference in their voting decision. Of those who said it did make a difference, the poll found those voters who said the situation made it less likely they would vote for Whitman out polled those who said it was more likely to vote for her by about 6%.

The San Francisco Chronicle has uncovered a scathing error at the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The newspaper has just published that the California Air Resources Board has “grossly miscalculated pollution levels” that were being used to further crack down on the state’s air standards.

The California Air Resources Board didn’t miss the mark slightly. They miscalculated California’s air pollution levels by a stunning 340 percent. That’s 340%.

The Chronicle reports that the stark errors in the Air Resources Board’s research “raise questions about the performance of the agency as it is in the midst of implementing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 – or AB 32 as it is commonly called.”

This error comes after the Air Resources Board vastly overinflated the number of diesel-related deaths in 2009, suggesting that 18,000 Californians had died prematurely when the number was actually a fraction of that.

If we can’t trust the state’s most powerful environmental board to calculate basic statistics correctly, what can we trust them to do?

Cross Posted on NewGeography.com.

Given the awful state of the economy, it’s no surprise that Democrats are losing some support among Latinos. But they can still consider the ethnic group to be in their pocket. Though Latinos have not displayed the lock-step party loyalty of African-Americans, they still favor President Barack Obama by 57 percent, according to one Gallup Poll — down just 10 percentage points from his high number early in the administration.

This support is particularly unusual, given that probably no large ethnic group in America has suffered more than Latinos from the Great Recession. This is true, in large part, because Latino employment is heavily concentrated in manufacturing, and even more so in construction.

A half-million Latino workers in the construction sector — in which their share of the work force is double what it is in the broader economy — have lost their jobs since the start of the recession.

Unfortunately, the Obama stimulus plan was light on physical infrastructure. It favored Wall Street, public-sector unions and large research universities. Big winners included education and health services — in which Latinos are under-represented.

Getting off the California Ave. exit from the 99 Freeway in Bakersfield, I came across a man in cowboy hat sitting astride a horse and carrying two Vote Yes on Prop 19 signs. I couldn’t resist. I pulled over and talked to him.

The cowboy was named Howard Woolridge; the horse was named Misty. A retired police officer from Lansing, Michigan who now lives in Fort Worth, Texas, Woolridge is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Woolridge told me now that he’s retired he can “shout his mouth off” about what he sees as a waste of resources against the use of marijuana when those dollars could be used against serious crime.

The retired officer argued that the reason police departments line up against legalization is because the war on drugs brings money to the departments. He also acknowledged an emotional reason the officers don’t want to end the war on drugs. He said the police don’t want to believe that those officers killed in the line of duty in the drug war died in vain.

Looks like we’re getting a budget like we’ve had in the past. One put together containing more hopes and wishes than expressed by a class full of kindergarteners at Christmas. But it is actually a logical budget. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say good. I didn’t say smart. But it is understandable how we got here.

This is an election year. The legislators were able to create a budget that didn’t raise taxes and place a wet blanket on the economy; nor did they eliminate welfare programs like CalWorks that keep people afloat in difficult times.

What they did was make a budget that hopes for a brighter future and generosity from Washington that they know will not come. Legislators hope the economy will recover and the money will suddenly appear. There is a danger in this strategy, of course. How many years in a row can this be done before the whole system falls apart?

The 2nd tier benefits for new hires is an excellent move in the right
direction, and we hope this action will be copied by local agencies
throughout the state.

However, based on a new study released today, fiscal conditions are so
dire that we must also ask for more pension concessions from current
workers to avoid cuts in services, layoffs, and/or higher taxes.

Why is it that we Californians will watch a freeway chase of a car going nowhere fast? Fascinated with the police chase? Waiting for action, even a potential crash? Hoping for the ultimately real-time capture?

Oh for the same attention to Sacramento elected leaders in their "chase" of an illusive, timely, balanced state budget! But electeds’ glacial pace at solving legitimate problems of crisis proportion and budgetary inaction has become the "new normal"- and the equivalent of watching paint dry.

California’s economy is the largest of any state in the US, and is the eighth largest economy in the world. Is it not absolutely outrageous that elected leaders can’t seem to put a budget together in a timely fashion? Frankly, at this point almost any budget-including a "kick-the-can-down-the-street-until-the-next-governor" budget would be better than none. Beyond the partisan snipes and ideological warfare, this state’s millions of residents suffer while our legislators blithely attend to fundraising and upcoming election activity. Where is the constituent outrage?