Here's a link to the latest cartoon contest on the McClatchy DC website, where my national cartoons appear regularly.Mayor Kevin Johnson posted a truly odd response on his campaign blog Thursday to critics of his move to ferret out a City Hall leaker.. He loves accountability, he wrote in his first line. "Not one day has passed without me talking about accountability," he said.
Now, he continued, [...]
Several weeks ago, an emergency room doctor named Nathan Fairman made contact with our pages. He inquired if we might publish his essay about how cuts in county mental health programs were filling his ER with people in desperate need of psychiatric treatment.
His essay required some slight [...]
There's hasn't been much buzz around The Swarm lately, but that is about to change. Sacramento's Mark Williams, who has emerged as a national spokesman for the Tea Party movement, was interviewed by CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday. Among other things, Williams, a former KFBK talk radio host, defended his description (last year) of Obama as an "Indonesian Muslim" turned "welfare thug." At least [...]
On Sunday the Bee began a seven-day series of editorials on the revised state budget legislators passed last week and the future of state government. We will examine how the new spending plan will affect the services Californians receive from their government. And in each piece, we will also [...]
Sacramento's "Tent City" in my latest animated cartoon...
Here's today's cartoon on Sunrise-Douglas:Actually, it is really dog bites man, because California has always repaid its bonds. But it still might be shocking to anyone who is casually following the state's finances. Anyway, it was surprising enough that Tom Dresslar from the Treasury's office felt compelled to publicize it in a short [...]
For the first time in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's numerous visits to The Bee's editorial board, I noticed that his security entourage - and it's a big one - includes a dog.
Taz, a German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois mix was posted outside the 3rd floor editorial board room.
To guard [...]
Join us live Friday as the Sacramento Bee editorial board questions Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Watch the discussion, and participate by sending your questions. It starts at 11 a.m. Friday at www.sacbee.com/live. Or, e-mail your questions for the governor in advance to topics@sacbee.com. [...]
I want to challenge a bit of conventional wisdom about the state's once and future habit of "borrowing" from local government or from special funds, such as those set aside for transportation.
I don't think we should call this kind of policy choice borrowing, or even think of it that way.
The state [...]
This 10-minute Reason.tv documentary deconstructs the history of Schwarzenegger's transformation from tax cutter to tax-raiser. It's actually surprisingly sympathetic to him, portraying the governornater more as a victim of the powerful public employee unions than a sell-out. Former legislator, now Congressman Tom McClintock plays a starring role.
[...]
The Democratic governor of New York has proposed a spending limit that appears to be not only stricter than California's Prop 1A but more severe even than the caps commonly promoted here by fiscal conservatives. Gov. David Patterson's proposal would limit spending growth to the average of the past three [...]
Roy Grimes, currently president of the Sacramento City Unified school board, has political ambitions.
Capitol Morning Report today reports that Grimes has formed a committee to explore a run for an important statewide office -- Superintendent of Public Instruction. Jack O'Connell is termed out and Grimes, apparently, wants to replace him.
Doesn't Grimes [...]
The headlines on the Field Poll story today were alll about "voters" opposing the May 19 ballot measures, but the real story is in the partisan split.
Democrats and independents favor the most of the package, especially its most importance piece, Proposition 1A. But Republicans are opposed and their [...]
The Democratic Party's refusal to endorse (by the required supermajority) the budget package on the May 19 ballot, following the Republican Party's decision to oppose the measures, means more of the same from the state's grass-roots political activists. The Democrats balked mostly because of the spending cap in Prop. [...]
In solidarity with county workers who will soon be required to forgo cost-of-living increases and take unpaid furloughs, Sacramento Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan has volunteered to cut her salary by an equivalent amount. But there's a problem. The county attorney has told MacGlashan that a county ordinance prevents her from cutting her salary midterm. MacGlashan [...]
Here is economist Steve Levy's take on today's California jobs report:
California's unemployment rate reached 11.2% in March, the highest rate on record, topping the 11.0% rate of February 1983. The state lost an additional 62,100 jobs in March. For the past 12 months California has seen 637,400 jobs vanish and [...]
It's still not clear that the unions will spend money against Prop. 1A, despite Kevin Yamamura's report here that the SEIU, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Faculty Assn. have formed an opposition committee. But it would indeed be a perfect California marriage if the state's biggest [...]
One odd thing about the anti-tax groups' opposition to Prop. 1A is that if they win, they will produce a result that the Democrats in the Legislature would have been happy to accomplish this year.
The Democrats were pushing for a tax increase. They wanted a permanent tax hike, but would [...]
The No on 1E people say they caught a CTA official stating in error that the money IE would shift from the Prop 63 fund would be "borrowed" and paid back "with interest." The 1E opponents point out that this is not the case, that the money being shifted will [...]
Our friends at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. brought this editorial from the Daily Breeze to our attention, noting that today, with the 1-cent sales tax hike taking effect, Californians begin to pay for the "failures" of our leaders. That's the same language often employed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, or [...]
Today's 'toon on public employee pensions...
