by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Today, thousands of Californians young and old are packing unionshalls, senior centers, churches and schools around the state to selectdelegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and the number of candidates is unprecedented, theSan Francisco Chronicle reports. For instance, in Barbara Lee's EastBay Congressional district, 101 people are vying for four delegateslots for Barack Obama.

Balancing the budget is hard, as this Sacramento Bee article pointsout, and sometimes the kind of non-partisan solutions offered  byLegislative Analyst Liz Hill are ignored. The balance becomes harderwhen Republicans insist on calling every proposed tax increase "stifling."

For more on Republican budget hypocrisy, check out this Calitics piece, which breaks down what exactly the GOP means by "economic growth."

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Remember the squealing of Senate Republicans after Senator Sheila Kuehl accurately described the Caucus as 14 "white men"? Well, it didn't take long for Senate Republicans, led by media hungry Sen. George Runner, to prove that Senator Kuehl was right on the money when she hinted that the Senate Republican boys club was playing the race card in their budget negotiations.
 
In an article that appeared in his hometown Antelope Valley Press yesterday, Runner lashed out at Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez for holding a press conference at a Sacramento prenatal clinic that will be forced to shut down because of the Republican budget blockade. "I wish he'd stand in front of the UC Mexico program or stand in front of some guy who's dunning welfare fraud," he said. "But, no, they want to go and stand in front of people who aren't even in this fight and use them as pawns."
 
Wow. Talk about spinning out of control.
 
Runner and the Senate Republicans have singled out the UC Mexico campus for shutdown, despite the fact that Mexico is California's largest trading partner and the cultural home to more than a quarter of our citizens. However, the 14 Senate Republicans have no problem sparing UC's London program -- the equivalent of the UC Mexico program -- for their list of cuts.
 
Racism? You be the judge.
 

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

At no point in modern history has our State Budget been held up for so long by so few people for reasons so vague, vain and valueless.  Make no mistake: the Senate Republican Budget Blockade is not a sustainable policy position -- it is an exercise of political narcissism, an incoherent temper tantrum with no clear rationale or objective but gridlock itself.

And, now, predictably, the most vulnerable pressure points within this GOP legislative jihad are starting to show. 

Take a good, hard look at this poison-tipped email sent wide by Senator Jeff Denham’s Chief of Staff Jim Kjol to the Governor’s Director of Finance Mike Genest, a highly-respected Republican, and reprinted in full by our friends at the Flash Report -- a vicious, in-your-face attack which proves the axiom that, in politics, when things start going wrong, things usually start getting personal. 

The catalyst for all this vitriol? This pointed but polite op-ed in the Modesto Bee in which Genest correctly points out that the Budget proposal on the table -- the one Denham has chosen to block -- is one of the most fiscally prudent and, yes, conservative budgets in recent memory, far more restrained and responsible than budgets Denham happily supported in prior years.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Dante Atkins (hekebolos) [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I just got off a blogger conference call (primarily on budget issues) with Speaker Nunez.  Julia Brian, Rick Jacobs, Robert Cruickshank, Brian Leubitz and I got to ask questions.  Below the fold you'll see some notes that I took on the conference call.  My apologies is some of the stuff seems inconsistent.

Transcript of sorts below the fold.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Yesterday I outlined the four big lies of the Republican spin on the state budget. Due to popular request, here are two more.

Senate Republicans continue to call for additional reductions in spending and have complained that annual expenditures exceed annual revenues (their "structural deficit" argument). However, the Assembly-passed budget is far better on both of those issues than recent state budgets that current GOP Senators supported.

1. This budget increases spending only 1.3%, far below inflation and population increases.
2. This budget's expenditure increases are far below the projected annual revenue increase of 6%, which means for the first time since Schwarzenegger has become Governor, expenditure increases are less than revenue increases. 

Ironically, GOP Senators have had little problem supporting the past three budgets -- each of which increased spending and made the "structural deficit" worse -- while only one GOP Senator is now willing to support a budget that holds the line on new spending and actually makes the "structural deficit" significantly better. 

Here are the facts: