[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

State Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer health care bill would cost California more than $210 billion and leave the state saddled with more than $40 billion more in debt in one year, according to a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst noted in an article today by the Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub.

That compares to the LAO's projection of a $1.5 billion deficit from legislation passed by Assembly Democrats and favored by Gov. Schwarzenegger. That legislation died in Senator Kuehl's Health Committee, with several senators expressing concerns about that cost.

To put that in perspective, the state is currently wrestling with a $17 billion operating deficit. And no one seems to know how that gap will be closed. Kuehl's single-payer bill would more than double that debt.

Weintraub notes that "Kuehl's current bill does specify a financing scheme," and the Senator admits the financing would be impossible to get through the legislature.

There's more...

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

The 30th anniversary of Prop 13 has brought out a raft of commentary in the state media. This commentary tends to split on whether Prop 13 benefited or hurt the state - as if there is still any doubt that it was a disaster - but it rarely examines some of the underlying assumptions of Prop 13, and even more rarely does it explore the deep inequality it has enshrined into our state.

Much of this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about what Prop 13 was and what it did. Voters convinced themselves it was a populist revolt against rising property taxes. They believe this so fervently that they act as if they willed it into existence.

In fact Prop 13 was an extremist attack on the very practice of state government by a group of far-right activists, with property taxes used as a convenient cover. Those who voted for - and who say they would vote for it again - still seem to believe its primary purpose was to protect homeowners, when its true goal was to destroy public services by starving government of revenue - otherwise why include the 2/3 rule? Why give commercial property the same protection as homeowners?

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Dan Weintraub beat up another straw man in his silly column in today’s Sacramento BEE.

Weintraub writes, “almost no one serving in the Legislature today has ever had to run a campaign appealing to independent voters or independent minded members of the opposite party.”

Weintraub blames redistricting for this failure. But he’s quite wrong.

Republicans never campaign to “independents” or “like minded Democrats”. They run intensely negative campaigns designed to depress the turnout of these groups – or to get them to pass over the contested race.

Lynn Daucher’s campaign, for example, mailed pieces attacking Lou Correa to Democratic and declined-to-state voters every day for a month. That’s 30 pieces of mail. None were designed to get votes for Daucher. All were designed to persuade “independents” and “independent minded Democrats” not to vote for Correa.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Anthony Wright
Executive Director of Health Access California

Conservative blogger Jon Fleischman at the FlashReport has a post attacking the "unelected" Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) about their "alternative budget" proposal that includes revenue increases, not just cuts. The Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub defends the LAO and its role.

There are several issues here: the substance of the LAO's proposal, how the recommendations should be considered by the Legislature, and the LAO's overall role in the budget process.

Weintraub is right that the LAO has put forward policy and budget proposals all the time, but for some reason, probably political, people have invested the office with a more mythic role recently. The LAO has no more power than any other analyst outside the Capitol, does not have make decisions or cast votes, and is not accountable to anybody if it gets things wrong. Fleischman is right that the LAO has no more claim to the truth. Rather, it is there to provide advice to the Legislature, just like other think tanks, consumer groups, and specific interests do.