My reliable Capitol sources are telling me that a new budget deal will be announced this afternoon. It is a deal that includes all parties in the Big 5. The Governor will get his entire Budget Reform package as he articulated in his veto announcement (though as we have pointed out, this is a good start but far short of a Gann-style limit on spending). As for the trading points to get there, well, I have that info but unfortunately have been embargoed from sharing at this time. But now that you know this much, start shaking the trees and maybe you'll find out… Or just wait for the press conference…… Read More

Before Fleischman e-towel slaps me for this entry not being "California enough," it is coming from a CA-based consultant, so I’m goin’ with it.

Either Jennifer Kerns at K Street Communications’ blog is putting herself out there on this one, quoting an anonymous "high-placed DNC insider," or — if she is somehow correct — no one will soon forget….

The Street is hearing from a source this morning that a high-placed DNC insider has confirmed that Vice Presidential pick Joe Biden will step down from the Democratic ticket. The report is that on or about October 5, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing "health problems," and he will be replaced by Hillary Clinton. This follows weeks of a post-Palin bounce following the RNC Convention, and significant… Read More

The fine crew at Capitol Weekly (www.capitolweekly.net) have the details I could not give. Ah, the constraints of being fair but totally biased…… Read More

Legislative Republicans, not having had a majority in the legislature since 1958, and only twice had a majority in one house of the Legislature since then (1968-70 and 1994-96) won a big one. Despite the Governor’s bluff and bluster, he ultimately agreed to a couple of small changes in the deal cut by the Legislative leaders, and it appears that the budget will now be signed.

Without new taxes.

Let’s face it. That is what this fight was all about, and the Republican Legislators won that fight hands down, no questions asked. They did a Pacquiao on the Democrats and the Governor, and got a budget without new taxes. Not a good budget, but, quite frankly, no budget has been good in the last 10 years. Ever since Gray Davis began the spending splurge that this current Governor continued, the budget roller coaster has sailed up and down with the economy, from spendthrift to crisis to spendthrift to crisis. If the Democrats and the Governor don’t end the spendthrift times, we will move from the current crisis to the next very soon.

As I said before, the one good thing about a budget that uses gimmicks to balance a budget is that the… Read More

The Governor’s petulance over the budget vote is just the latest in his exercise of ego as an element of government policy. It is now clear that he cares little about anything other than getting his own way. Policy has long ago left any discussion. In his mind, it is now all about the Governor.

While it is true the budget is flawed, it has one major benefit. Recessions do not last forever, revenues will recover and will recover soon. Spending that extra money on current bills, rather than program expansions prevents even worse spending crises in the future. The only time this Governor exercised any spending restraint was when he was paying off the bills incurred by Gray Davis. Maybe if we force him to pay off the bills he incurred yesterday from future revenues, we can prevent this spendthrift from sending the state into another budget crisis.

And that is why his criticism today is so hypocritical. It was his spending policies that created this mess. It was his deals with the Democrats that cause the collapse of the current budget. For him to criticize this budget, which is attempting to fix his mess, on the grounds that it doesn’t… Read More

[Publisher’s Note – This particular opinion piece rambles on a bit. Somewhere in this is a point to be made. Discerning readers will have to figure it out… Flash]

There is definitely no road map for a conservative legislator when dealing with the state budget debacle, which is why if you look at the vote’s on the state budget in the Senate and Assembly, Republicans are split – many reliably conservative legislators voted for the bill, while still many others voted against it.

Welcome to the intersection of policy and politics. I mean, let’s be clear. The budget that sits on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk, that he has vowed to veto on Friday (presumably Friday to maximize inconvenience to legislators who would have to come up on the weekend for a potential over-ride vote, with one Assemblyman, Lloyd Levine, having to choose between a budget vote in Sacramento, and his own wedding in Seattle), is riddled with reasons for a conservative to vote no. Frankly, it doesn’t… Read More

The Prop 11 folks (Governor, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, et.al) have launched a web-ad that blasts the opponents of Prop. 11 for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state’s prison guard union. Here is the ad… I did note with some consternation that Prop. 11 proponents have listed disgraced, recalled ex-Governor Gray Davis as a supporter of their measure. I find that to be quite odd. You would think that being recalled from office by the voters would buy you a permanent home in the halls of infamy — is Gray Davis on a comeback?… Read More

There are a lot of valid reasons for Republican legislators to be upset with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But while voting to override his veto of the state budget would provide some visceral and potentially justifiable feelings of retribution toward a governor who pays them much less attention than they would like, it's not a valid public policy position for a conservative elected official.

There are understandable reasons for a conservative lawmaker to be tempted by the budget that passed the Legislature earlier this week. It doesn't raise taxes, at least according to some definitions. It does implement some spending reductions. It takes the first tentative steps toward budget reform. Most importantly, the long ugly summer has turned into a potentially longer and uglier autumn, and the service providers and editorial writers are screaming for action.

But none of those are reasons for overriding a Schwarzenegger veto. While it's an adroit political maneuver to point out that the so-called revenue “accelerators” that speed up tax and withholding collections originated in his administration's Department of Finance, it doesn't… Read More