Katy Grimes: By lunch time today, Gov. Jerry Brown finished signing the rest of the budget bills reducing state spending by an additional $15 billion, and creating a $500,000 million reserve. Without a news conference or any pomp and circumstance, Brown's office put out a press release announci...
June, 2011Honest, Painful Budget FinalizedThursday, June 30th, 2011Hemp pilot bill passes SenateThursday, June 30th, 2011 Ali Meyer: On June 29, the Senate passed Sen. Mark Leno's bill SB 676, which authorizes a pilot project for growing industrial hemp, a marjuana-related plant that provides useful products without the psychoactive properties of marijuana. The bill defines "industrial hemp" as an agricultural field ... Rex Hime paves way for split rollsThursday, June 30th, 2011Steven Greenhut: Rex Hime is president of the California Business Properties Association, a trade group representing commercial property owners, and someone who is adamantly opposed to the split-rolls tax, which would remove Prop. 13 protections from commercial property owners. Yet Hime and his asso... Brown Signs Punitive Amazon TaxThursday, June 30th, 2011 (This is an updated Washington Examiner story from June 29.) JUNE 30, 2011 By KATY GRIMES With the California legislature having just passed a flawed budget full of accounting tricks, budget gimmicks and money grabs, one area of small business is about to be taxed right out of business -- j... Union backs union candidate!Thursday, June 30th, 2011Steven Greenhut: Here's a dog-bites-man story from Orange County, where liberal Republican Todd Spitzer, a staunch union ally who foisted unsustainable pension benefits on the county as supervisor, just was endorsed by a law-enforcement association (union) for his new run for the seat. Per the Spitz... Skelton: Tax, Tax, Tax, Tax, TaxThursday, June 30th, 2011 John Seiler: In his column on the budget disaster, L.A. Times columnist George Skelton continues with his perpetual mantra: tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, ... Pension Iceberg Will Sink State BudgetThursday, June 30th, 2011 JUNE 30, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Imagine you’re a passenger on the ill-fated RMS Titanic luxury liner on its 1912 maiden voyage. But the Titanic had no warning of an iceberg lurking below the ocean surface -- unlike the Pirate Ship California that can detect with modern sonar a huge iceberg o... Brown Upholds Farm Worker Secret BallotThursday, June 30th, 2011JUNE 30, 2011 By KATY GRIMES After months of protests, lobbying and speeches, on March 31, César Chávez Day, the California Senate passed SB 104 to eliminate secret ballot elections for farm workers voting on unionization. And Tuesday night, in a move that surprised many, Gov. Jerry Brow... Cal Biz Climate Ranks Pathetic 32ndThursday, June 30th, 2011 JUNE 30, 2011 By JOSEPH PERKINS The Legislature passed a budget this week that assumes $10.6 billion in higher tax revenues flowing into the state’s coffers next year. That sum includes not only the $6.6 billion Gov. Jerry Brown projected in the budget proposal he submitted last month, bu... California Won’t Be The Same Under New BudgetThursday, June 30th, 2011 |