Free Republic

The United States will lead an international effort to release 60 million barrels of petroleum reserves to world markets, replacing some of the oil production lost due to the conflict in Libya and, the countries hope, reducing energy prices for businesses and consumers, the International Energy Agency announced in Paris on Thursday. The United States will release half of the total amount from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with the rest of the oil to be provided by other nations among the international agency’s 28 member states. Negotiations for the coordinated response have been going on in secret for weeks, according...

The budget passed by the Legislature on June 15 was incomplete and unbalanced and lawmakers will not receive any pay until they approve a balanced pending plan, Controller John Chiang announced today. The controller's decision has been highly anticipated at the Capitol since Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a budget plan passed by only Democrats on a majority vote. Chiang found that the budget authorized $89.75 billion in spending, but revenues totaled only $87.9 billion, leaving an imbalance of $1.85 billion. "My office's careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished," Chiang said. "The numbers...

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association demanded Friday that Controller John Chiang withhold pay from lawmakers and threatened to sue if he does not. The group's president, Jon Coupal, contends that lawmakers must pass a balanced budget to receive pay under voter-approved Proposition 25. He referred to a veto letter in which Gov. Jerry Brown said the Democrats' majority-vote budget was "not a balanced solution" and "not financeable." "If you pay legislators for enacting a phony budget, then you have made Proposition 25's provision prohibiting pay meaningless," Coupal wrote. "We urge you to confirm your intent to withhold pay and force...

Now isn't this fun? The Legislature's Democrats push a chewing-gum-and-baling-wire budget through in near-record time, claiming that it's balanced and meets the rarely observed June 15 constitutional deadline for action. One day later, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown rejects it as unbalanced and unworkable – after hinting three days before that he might sign such a budget. "It continues big deficits for years to come and adds billions of dollars in new debt," Brown said in Thursday's veto message, parroting what Republicans had said. "It also contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings. It is not financeable and therefore...

Hours after vetoing the state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown said this afternoon that he will continue negotiating with Republican lawmakers at least until month's end. "We need four Republican votes, and in the next several days I'm going to do everything I can," Brown said at a press conference at his office in Los Angeles. "I'll move heaven and earth to get those votes." The veto was widely viewed as crucial politically to Brown, who staked his campaign and first six months in office on his promise to adopt a spending plan balanced without accounting maneuvers. To abandon that effort...

So did Democratic legislators accomplish anything on the state budget crisis Wednesday other than protect their paychecks? Probably not. Instead, by whipping a gimmick- and debt-based budget through both legislative houses lickety-split, Democrats appear to be petty and self-serving, thus adding to their already poor public standing. And they may have weakened Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's hand and bolstered Republicans in the budget game. The precise consequences are unclear because this is uncharted political territory. It's the first time in decades that the budget could be passed by a simple-majority vote, thanks to voters' passage of Proposition 25 last year,...

The debate about a California budget has been under way for many years while the budget has drifted in and out of solvency, mostly the latter. But the current phase of the legislative debate could be the beginning of the end of one particular segment of this particular year’s version. The Democrats are poised to put on a big show to present their budget, including an extension of billions of dollars in temporary taxes that otherwise would expire. They’ll recite tales of woe from police, fire and education officials and warnings that thousands of felons will be released from prison...

Throughout the year, Gov. Jerry Brown has insisted he will not sign a budget balanced with non-tax, onetime revenues - often dubbed "gimmicks." But he left open the possibility Monday he would do just that if majority Democrats send him such a budget. "That's a very good question," Brown said when asked about signing a non-tax revenue budget at a Capitol press conference. "I will take a very hard look at it. We've had discussions with the leadership, and I've told them the way I see things, and we'll see what happens when they bring it down." Previously, Brown has...

DES MOINES, Iowa—Prominent Republicans here pretty much splinter into two camps on the question of whether Sarah Palin will jump into the 2012 presidential race. One side points to a mysterious California lawyer named Peter Singleton as proof the former Alaska governor will definitely run. The other side points to Mr. Singleton as proof she won't. "When it comes to Palin in Iowa, it's pretty much Peter Singleton," said Iowa Tea Party Director Ryan Rhodes. "The guy is everywhere." Crisscrossing the state in a series of rented cars, the 56-year-old Mr. Singleton has spent the better part of five months...

The Paul Ryan deficit-elimination plan assumes that unemployment will drop to 2.8% by the year 2028. As Paul Krugman points out, the only time we've been at this level was briefly, during the Korean War. Even during the crazy .com, unemployment barely broke below 4%. Seriously, if Obama announced a plan with something like that, he'd be mocked left and right. And again, via Krugman, the Heritage Foundation table pointing out the number. You can see the 2.8% estimate in the very bottom right hand.

Cutting universities, shifting prisoners to county jails and slashing funds for Medi-Cal patients is difficult. But from a political perspective, those were among the easier moves. Lawmakers voted to erase $14 billion of the state's $26.6 billion deficit last week by cutting various state programs, taking funds from special accounts and finding creative ways to raise revenue. Finding the rest of the money will be significantly harder. Republicans remain opposed to Brown's proposal to put tax extensions on a June ballot or eliminate redevelopment agencies, two ideas that require bipartisan support. Absent those solutions, the governor is vowing to pursue...

Both houses of the California Legislature passed the main budget bill today and have now solved roughly half of the state's $26.6 billion deficit, mostly through cuts and taking funds from special state accounts. But nobody's celebrating yet. The Legislature has left unsettled two of the thorniest issues in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal -- the elimination of redevelopment agencies and a special election asking voters to extend higher taxes on sales, income and vehicles. Without those changes, the Legislature will have to cut deeper or find new pots of money other than taxes. So far, Brown and Democrats remain...

Budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and five Senate Republicans are "done and over," Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway told KMJ radio this morning, though the governor's spokesman disagrees. "It's my impression, after speaking to some of (the Senate Republicans), that the talks are done and over, and they walked away from the table," Conway said. "It's their impression that, even though the governor seems willing, labor has said 'no' to all of the requests. So I think everybody left very unhappy from the table." Joe Justin, spokesman for Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet, one of the five GOP senators negotiating...

As California's economy roared in the middle years of the last decade – an unsustainable bubble fueled by mortgage funny money – income and sales taxes flooded into the state treasury. General fund revenues climbed by one-third from $76.8 billion in 2003-04, Arnold Schwarzenegger's first fiscal year in the Governor's Office, to more than $102 billion in 2007-08. And Republican Schwarzenegger and a Legislature controlled by Democrats spent every nickel and then some. When the housing bubble burst, however, revenues plummeted as fast as they had climbed, only to be stabilized a bit... Meanwhile, however, the spending commitments that Schwarzenegger...

Gov. Jerry Brown and a splinter group of Republicans resumed negotiating on the state budget Tuesday, despite doubts the governor and his fellow Democrats are able to meet their demands. The Republicans, who call themselves the "GOP 5," reached out just hours after announcing they had reached impasse – unable to agree with Brown about his tax proposal or their demands for pension, regulatory and other changes to government. Facing a $26.6 billion budget deficit, Brown needs at least two Republican votes in each house to ask voters to extend 2009 tax increases on vehicles, income and sales. He had...

The Capitol's great debate over whether California voters should be given the chance to extend or terminate more than $10 billion a year in temporary taxes may be nearing a climactic moment. Thursday is Gov. Jerry Brown's self-imposed deadline for a budget deal that would place the tax extensions on a June election ballot, but he's still looking for the four Republican votes he needs. Five GOP legislators who had been dickering with Brown issued a public demand for tax, spending and pension changes that Democrats would be almost certain to reject, and a frustrated Brown said he needs "a...

More notes on Gov. Jerry Brown's decision today to end the state sale of 11 office properties to private investors: • The deficit grows from $25.4 billion to $26.6 billion, as Brown foresaw in a previous press release. By eliminating the sale, the state will not receive a onetime infusion of $1.2 billion, so that amount gets tacked on to the previous deficit total. • Brown's proposal nearly doubles the amount of internal borrowing from special funds. His previous proposal relied on $1 billion in internal borrowing; the new plan takes that up to $1.8 billion. The governor also relies...

With a special election to extend taxes looming, Gov. Jerry Brown is selling his budget proposals as a mix of cuts and revenues. Kevin Yamamura of The Bee Capitol Bureau examines his approach. The claims Brown characterizes his plan as half cuts and half taxes, roughly $12 billion of each, to solve a $25.4 billion deficit and create a $1 billion reserve through June 30, 2012. The remainder of Brown's plan relies on nearly $2 billion in internal borrowing, transfers and nontax revenues. Analysis Brown's budget would slash $8 billion in general fund expenses, including $1.7 billion in Medi-Cal and...

The state's legislative analyst credits Gov. Jerry Brown for taking aim at California's fiscal crisis with serious proposals to cut programs and shift responsibilities to local governments in the budget he introduced this week. But Mac Taylor, the legislative analyst, warned in a report released today that Brown's budget carries some risky assumptions and "optimistic savings assumptions." "We believe the governor's proposal is a good starting point for legislative deliberations," the Legislative Analyst's Office summary said. But, he added, "there is significant work ahead to fill in the details of some of the governor's ambitious, complex proposals, particularly given his...

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to lift a stay blocking the sale of state office properties until after he leaves office next week, likely sinking the deal. Gov.-elect Jerry Brown has been critical of the transaction and, as the state attorney general, declined to defend it. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature last year approved selling 24 buildings on 11 properties to private investors for immediate cash, while promising to lease back the properties for 20 years.