The U.S. economy is suffering under crippling deficits, massive debt, and record unemployment. The country needs fresh ideas, novel solutions, and unorthodox measures to stimulate job growth, pay down debt, and balance its budget. Independents will be watching for policy proposals and candidates, who think outside the box, can make the tough decisions, and challenge the status quo when it comes to leading the economy out of a recession.
More than a month into the state’s new fiscal year, Assembly and Senate Democrats proposed a joint budget that includes tax increases, causing Republican lawmakers and Governor Schwarzenegger to pronounce it dead on arrival. The plan would close a $17.9 billion budget gap largely through $8.4 billion in spending reductions, $4.1 billion in federal funds, and $2.4 billion in tax increases.
If it wouldn’t too terribly inconvenience the California legislature when they return from their month-long July vacation – taken in lieu of working together to pass a budget – could they possibly try to pass the budget when they return all sun-tanned and rested in August? Don’t bet on it.
In a trend that continues to accelerate, chickens are going mainstream in suburban and urban backyards across the nation.
It was 1972 and I was coming out of the Navy with the hope of entering the civilian workforce. It took me a couple of months to find the right position and begin what would be a 30-year career in corporate communications.
Very few economists, Wall St analysts, government officials, and cable television pundits predicted the Great Recession. At the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke missed it. The Wall St consensus missed it. The Bush administration missed it. Obama and his team missed it. The so-called experts on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC largely missed it.
On Monday, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill to plan celebrations for what would have been Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday next year, and another bill declaring February 6th as Ronald Reagan day. Nationwide, conservatives have been pining for their “next Reagan” to lead America out of its economic woes and toward a vision of limited government and individual liberty.
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On Friday, a judge ruled State Controller John Chiang can delay the temporary pay cut ordered by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately, both sides are playing cynical political games with state workers’ paychecks.
Since the late 2008/early 2009 crash, the nation’s largest banks have experienced tremendous growth, reported substantial profits, and been able to pay back billions in TARP loans. On Main St, however, a far more sobering reality exists.
There’s a very real unraveling of the “rules of the road” these days, and it’s likely to cause a re-assessment of many aspects of our lives. Among the symbols of this deconstruction of society as we have known it are the housing bust and its resultant reduction in local and regional tax revenues, the prospects of de-inflation and the imposition of minimum wage on thousands of state
In the aftermath of the Senate primary last month, it has fast become a conventional media narrative to paint Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina as a conservative’s conservative, with doctrinaire responses down the line on issues – responses which are allegedly drawn straight from the Rush Limbaugh-Sarah Palin-Ann Coulter school of Republicanism, with nothing that would complicate the th
