The state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst yesterday
sharply criticized the proposed budget for spending too much on program expansion without satisfactorily addressing the budget's structural imbalance, writes Evan Halper in the Times. "'We're expanding spending at a time when we have a significant state budget problem,' said nonpartisan Legislative Analyst
Elizabeth G. Hill, to whom lawmakers of both parties look for advice on such matters."
"After two years of insisting on budgets that would shrink the state's chronic, multibillion-dollar deficit, Schwarzenegger went in the other direction Tuesday, presenting a $125.6-billion election-year spending proposal. His plan would significantly increase money for education and transportation,
leaving the state to spend $6.4 billion more than it produces in projected revenue."
Administration representatives claim that they have made progress in the governor's first two budgets, and continue to bring expenditures in line with revenues. "'By any measure I am familiar with, we are moving in the right direction,' said Department of Finance Director
Mike Genest. 'There is quite a bit of money in the general fund.
To try to reduce programs when we don't absolutely have to is not prudent.'"
Lynda Gledhill and Paul Feist get the
response from the guv. "'You can never please everybody,' he said Thursday in the Bay Area. 'Any time any governor has proposed a budget, people attack it.'"
The governor was in Fremont
campaigning for his Strategic Growth Plan, writes Lisa Fernandez for the Merc News. "'For too many people, gridlock has become a way of life. We need to start work on our infrastructure,' he said."
"Schwarzenegger chose Fremont, where he filmed part of 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' in 1991, as the setting to push a
$107 billion investment in transportation over 10 years to improve California's roads and other infrastructure. He said the investment would reduce traffic congestion by 20 percent in the next decade and improve quality of life in California."
"'You've got to plan for the future,' he said. 'It's just like bodybuilding.
You don't create a body without knowing how many sets you're going to do, or how many food supplements you're going to take.'"
...cue the "bonds on steroids" critique in 3...2...1...
Dan Walters writes that, while former Governor
Pete Wilson ardently opposed "auto-pilot spending,"
Arnold Schwarzenegger now
seems willing to embrace it. Walters provides the governor's overappropriation of Proposition 98 and support for Proposition 49 spending in this year's budget.
"Wilson was absolutely right in predicting that autopilot spending could be the fiscal ruination of California, and his protégé, Schwarzenegger, is proving the point."Meanwhile, Gary Delsohn writes in the Bee that, in a
"letter to the nation's homeland security chief, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger argued Thursday that the Bush administration is wrong to cut anti-terror funds for Sacramento and San Diego."
From our
Must Be Nice Files: "Tapping the fortune he built as an EBay executive, state Controller
Steve Westly has
put $20 million into his campaign for governor — more than enough to mount a viable bid for the Democratic nomination to challenge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," report Michael Finnegan and Dan Morain for the Times.
"Westly, whose main rival in the June primary is state Treasurer
Phil Angelides, had $24.1 million in his campaign account at the end of 2005, according to a report he released Thursday. Hoping to show strength, Westly filed the report more than two weeks before the legal deadline."
Political consultant
Bill Carrick believes the both candidates will have enough resources, making the money race less important. "'At the end of the day, nobody's going to lose because they didn't have enough money," he said."
Meanwhile, The PUC
adopted the governor's solar initiative yesterday, reports Kevin Yamamura for the Bee. "Californians will receive rebates to install solar panels on their rooftops through 2016 under a $2.9 billion plan approved Thursday by the state Public Utilities Commission."
Democrats previously held up the guv's plan in the Legislature by demanding that installation be done using union labor standards.
"The plan is clearly Schwarzenegger's, and it received its third and decisive vote Thursday from Commissioner
Rachelle Chong, whom the Republican governor appointed on Wednesday."
"State Sen.
Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, author of the bill that served as the framework for the PUC plan, supported the commission's action. He said Thursday that California needs to have more self-sustaining energy sources."
From our
Life in the LBC files: Nancy Wride reports for the Times that
the Long Beach police department is missing one-fourth of its shotguns and an unknown number of revolvers. "The missing weapons came to light after patrol officers complained several months ago to Police Chief
Anthony Batts at a staff meeting
that they were having trouble finding department-issued shotguns. That led to patrol Lt. Elizabeth Griffin's examination of the matter last month, concluding in an audit, reviewed by The Times, that 85 of the 272 department's shotguns could not be located."
Earlier this week, we reported on the successful dismantling of an "improvised explosive device" at a San Francisco Starbucks. It turns out that the
description was inaccurate when it uses the word "explosive," reports the Chron. "Earlier, police had described the device as a
quarter-stick of dynamite inside a flashlight casing and said it could have killed or dismembered someone. It was found Monday afternoon at the Starbucks at 1401 Van Ness Ave., prompting authorities to evacuate the store and an apartment building above."
"Some authorities suggested Wednesday that a small blast heard when police turned the water cannon on the device -- first thought to have been caused by explosive material --
was in fact the result of high-pressure water hitting flashlight batteries."
Finally, from our
You Are What You Eat files, scientists now say that the
Donners didn't serve human at their Party. The AP reports "There's no physical evidence that the family who gave the Donner Party its name had anything to do with the cannibalism the ill-fated pioneers have been associated with for a century and a half, two scientists said Thursday."
"Cannibalism has been documented at the Sierra Nevada site where most of the Donner Party's 81 members were trapped during the brutal winter of 1846-47,
but 21 people, including all the members of the George and Jacob Donner families, were stuck six miles away because a broken axle had delayed them."
"'We are thrilled and relieved,' said
Lochie Paige, the great-granddaughter of Eliza Donner, daughter of George Donner."
