[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered all state departments to plan for 10% budget cuts after state officials warned that the housing market will create a shortfall.

Democratic leaders have agreed to parts of the governor'shealthcare plan, including individual requirements to buy insurance.Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) outlined a fundingproposal Monday that calls for a 2 to 6.5 percent sliding scale ofemployer contribution and a $2 per pack tax on cigarettes.

Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explains why healthcare reform has failed in the past. "If there's any chance of success this time, we need to understand the barriers that prevented reform in the past."

There's more...

Image courtesy of Calitics.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

There's good news and bad news ahead for Congressional Democrats: immigration will cause a major power shift of as many as 30-odd Congressional seats by the 2030 Census. The good news: most of those voters are likely to be Democrats. The bad news: many of the shifts will be to Red States, giving Republicans a 68-vote advantage in the Electoral College compared to a 34-vote advanage in 2004.
 
That's according to a fascinating article in Monday's Wall Street Journal [behind a subscription wall], that examines data from the Brookings Institution and the Population Reference Bureau, two respected Washington think tanks. The article suggests that after the 2030 Census, California will add two Congressional seats, Florida will add seven,Texas eight, and Arizona five seats. Other states -- largely in the West and southern Atlantic seaboard -- will pick up between 1 and 2 seats, largely due to an infux of immigrants.