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

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

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

Last fall I took the LA Times to task for framing the state budget crisis as a problem of "automatic" spending, and not being sufficiently attentive to the structural revenue shortfall that is the true cause of the budget problem.

While the LA Times has shown some improvement - George Skelton's column yesterday is mostly if not completely on target and the incomparable David Lazarus always has some good insights - the rest of the state's media seems slower to follow.

Take, for example, Sunday's Sac Bee column from Daniel Weintraub, California Budget 101: What went wrong, when. Weintraub's column purports to be a "a fuller explanation of the dimensions of the problem" - but winds up repeating the same discredited arguments, namely that this is primarily a spending problem:

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

Last fall I took the LA Times to task for framing the state budget crisis as a problem of "automatic" spending, and not being sufficiently attentive to the structural revenue shortfall that is the true cause of the budget problem.

While the LA Times has shown some improvement - George Skelton's column yesterday is mostly if not completely on target and the incomparable David Lazarus always has some good insights - the rest of the state's media seems slower to follow.

Take, for example, Sunday's Sac Bee column from Daniel Weintraub, California Budget 101: What went wrong, when. Weintraub's column purports to be a "a fuller explanation of the dimensions of the problem" - but winds up repeating the same discredited arguments, namely that this is primarily a spending problem:

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

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Attorney General Jerry Brown might be running for governor again,according the San Diego Union-Tribune. Really this time. And lucky forhim, term limits weren’t passed until he was well out of office thefirst time around.

George Skelton at the LA Times thinks that California’s early primary this year paid off,in terms of increased voter participation—and also because it made acrucial difference in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Without the delegatesshe picked up in California, he argues, Pennsylvania would have been nocontest.

The San Francisco Chronicle warns that if the Democratic presidential candidates don’t watch out, they may be swift boated in the upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.The North Carolina Republican Party is running a TV ad using ReverendWright to attack Obama, apparently without McCain’s consent.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]