Following a fairly sedate State of the State on Tuesday,
this morning's release of the governor's proposed budget is expected to be dramatic and trigger passionate debate.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
is expected today to propose shutting 48 state parks -- including some popular Southern California beaches -- releasing far more prison inmates than previously projected and increasing car fees for the second straight year as part of his solution to the state's fiscal crisis," report Evan Halper and Jordan Rau in the Times.
Oh, no,
not the beaches!
CW's John Howard says
the cuts will target the Legislature, too"Cutting government spending often entails cutting the bureaucracy and programs, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget goes one step further: It includes
a 10 percent cut in the Legislature’s spending. The governor is wielding his budget ax on the very people whose approval he needs to get his budget passed.
"
The governor’s own office also plans to take a 10 percent hit, although the real impact of such a reduction is not easily computed, because many of the governor’s key people receive salary increases from political campaign funds, which is legal. According to the Department of Finance, the agency that drafts the governor’s budget, staffing at the governor’s office suite has remained steady at 185 positions since 2005, but the budget for the office has risen from $18.1 million in 2005 to $19.6 million in 2007. An immediate 10 percent cut would reduce the current year’s budget to just under what it was in 2005. .
Halper and Rau continue: "And 14 months after persuading voters to borrow $37 billion for public works improvements,
his administration will propose roughly $40 billion in new borrowing for infrastructure needs related to schools, courts, water systems, higher education and high-speed rail.
"The budget blueprint, shaping up as the harshest since Schwarzenegger was first elected in 2003, will include scores of spending reductions that would affect people across the state. School spending would be rolled back by about $3 billion. Welfare payments for tens of thousands of children whose families are considered to be at high risk for homelessness would be eliminated.
"A cost-of-living increase for the elderly, blind and disabled receiving state assistance would be canceled, as would state-funded dental visits for the poor.
"
The cuts, described by officials familiar with the governor's proposals, are so deep that some in the Capitol are already dismissing the plan as a ruse -- an attempt to stir up so much public demand for a tax hike that the governor will ultimately be able to break his pledge not to take that route."
And, our schools lose too!
"In a politically charged move to help whittle down the state's $14 billion deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today
will propose billions in cuts to public education and a suspension of schools' constitutional funding guarantee under Proposition 98," reports
"Schwarzenegger will ask the Democratic-led Legislature to waive Proposition 98's minimum funding requirement for K-14 education programs when he releases his state spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and declares a fiscal emergency, according to three sources who have seen the proposal. The sources demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak.
"The suspension, which requires a two-thirds vote of lawmakers, has been done only once before – during the fiscal crisis of 2004 – and ultimately left Schwarzenegger reeling from accusations that he broke a promise to restore education funding in subsequent years."
Capitol Weekly
empathizes with all the difficulties the average pollster faces in the wake of a miscue like New Hampshire. "
Being a pollster is kind of like being a zookeeper. Nobody notices when you do your job properly. Everyone notices when you make a mistake."
But now, everyone's talking about California. "
After divided results in the Democratic and Republican contests in New Hampshire and Iowa, there is no doubt that California matters. In the wake of New Hampshire, California is on the lips of all the national pundits. But it’s not just the state’s Feb. 5 election they’re talking about. It’s California’s 1982 gubernatorial election.
"Multiple polls in the Granite State showed Illinois Sen.
Barack Obama opening up a wide lead over New York Sen.
Hillary Clinton in the days before the New Hampshire primary. When Clinton bested Obama on Tuesday, pundits immediately wondered if there was a racial component to the polling miscue, and whether people who were surveyed declined to honestly discuss sensitive racial issues. The phenomenon became known as 'The Bradley Effect.'
"The phrase refers to California’s 1982 race for governor between Democratic Los Angeles Mayor
Tom Bradley, an African American, and conservative Republican
George Deukmejian. Polls showed Bradley with a lead going into Election Day, but in the end, Deukmejian narrowly bested Bradley in the state’s closest race for governor.
CW's John Howard reports on
new legislation that will target the state's workers compensation fund.
"Prompted by top-level resignations, a wide-ranging criminal investigation and allegations of conflicts of interest, legislation looms to force changes in the way the multibillion-dollar State Compensation Insurance Fund is governed. The proposal, a still-unnamed Assembly bill, stems in part from a request by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who earlier considered calling a special session of the Legislature on the issue.
"The first Capitol hearing on the issue is planned for Jan. 30 in the Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee, chaired by Linden Democrat
Mike Machado.
"The bill, meanwhile, is being worked up in the Assembly Insurance Committee, chaired by Assemblyman
Joe Coto, D-San Jose. Administration officials met with key Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday.
Meanwhile,
the governor's plan to tax insurance premiums to pay for fire protection is already receiving criticism.
The LAT's Sharon Bernstein and Rong Gong Lin II report: "Some fire officials hailed the move as a first step toward recognizing the immense danger and cost of living on the edge of the wild lands, noting that the state needs to spend hundreds of millions more on fire protection, according to reports completed after the devastating 2003 fires.
"But others argue that it's unfair to tax all homeowners and renters who take out insurance policies -- many of whom already pay special taxes for local firefighting -- just to help those who choose to live in picturesque but fire-prone areas.
"'
It costs the rest of us for them to live there,' said
Roger Kennedy, a former director of the National Park Service who has written extensively on wildfires. '
The beneficiaries of living in those places should pay more for the privilege of living there.'
"The state's nonpartisan legislative analyst has recommended that local governments that approve development in high-risk fire zones be required to pay for the cost of firefighting. Homeowners should also pay an extra firefighting fee if they choose to move to such areas, the report recommended."
The U-T's Michael Gardners writes: "Assembly Republican leader
Mike Villines of Clovis said GOP lawmakers
consider the [fire insurance] proposal a tax and plan attempts to block implementation – regardless of the governor's warnings that it could have repercussions on the Cal Fire budget.
"'
There are no threats, no bluffs, that will move us,' Villines said."
What about hypnotism?
"The California Highway Patrol
retaliated against a whistle-blower who challenged then-Commissioner
Dwight 'Spike' Helmick for the top job, the state board that oversees personnel ruled in a decision released Wednesday," writes the Bee's John Hill.
"The board ruled that the CHP chief who sought to replace Helmick was also punished for criticizing a decision to let some officers keep working past the mandatory retirement age.
"The CHP and five officials, including Helmick, must pay a total of $40,000 to whistle-blower
Hubert Acevedo, who is now the police chief of Austin, Texas."
"A federal appeals court
gave San Francisco the green light Wednesday to require employers to help pay for health care for uninsured workers and residents, and it signaled that it is likely to uphold the city's groundbreaking universal coverage law," reports the Chron's Bob Egelko.
"A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed San Francisco to enforce its law and extend coverage to all uninsured adults while the city appeals a federal judge's decision striking down a key funding provision.
"That provision requires large and medium-size companies to offer insurance to their employees or pay a fee to the city for the cost of their coverage. The court said the city probably would win its argument that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White was wrong when he ruled Dec. 26 that local governments lack the power to force employers to contribute to a health care program.
"That the ruling allows the law to take effect during the city's appeal is unusual. Generally, appellate courts refuse to allow enforcement if a lower court has found part of a law invalid. In this case, however, the appeals court said it was granting San Francisco's request for an emergency stay of White's ruling because the city had a strong argument and because of consequences for people who cannot get health coverage.
"'
Otherwise avoidable human suffering, illness and possibly death will result if a stay is denied,' Judge William Fletcher said in the 3-0 decision."
...which is what clearly is happening in every other city of California that doesn't have San Francisco's mandate.
Meanwhile, the Merc News's Kimberly Kindy writes that the governor's
vision for a hydrogen highway is slow to get off the ground.
"Each of the last three agencies that received state funding to build a fueling station has decided not to pursue the project, including Pacific Gas & Electric's recent decision to abandon building a key Bay Area fueling station in San Carlos.
"In addition, three stations have recently closed, including one in Richmond that served county buses and was dismantled this week.
"That means the state is now down to 23 stations amid concerns that the technology is not viable in the near future and that it might be many more years before consumers have any real access to the vehicles that are now used mostly by government agencies in demonstration projects.
"'Things have changed,' said
Jill Egbert, manager of PG&E's Clean Air Transportation division. 'We feel hydrogen is a long-term solution, but there is no one technology that will be the silver bullet to meet transportation needs. From a resource standpoint, we feel a more pressing need to see how electric vehicles will affect our grid.'"
And you all may be focused on Feb 5 because of the presidential race, or term limits, but
in Riverside, Election Day means one thing: Chickens.
AP reports, "Measure A on the Feb. 5 would limit to seven the number of crowing roosters people can keep in the "residential agricultural" and "residential conservation" zones.
"Additionally, roosters would have to be confined to a sound-reducing enclosure no less than 100 feet from neighboring houses from sunset to sunrise."
