April Tax Collections Nearly $2.5 Billion Short, Controller Says

 California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements in California’s April tax collections were $2.44 billion below the estimates contained  in Gov. Jerry Brown’s January budget plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1, State Controller John Chiang said May 8 in his monthly cash balance report.

“The task of crafting a credibly-balanced budget has been made more difficult by a nine-month revenue shortfall of $3.5 billion,” said Chiang in a statement.    Read more »

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The Problem WIth Independent Expenditure Committees

Frank Bigelow seems an affable fellow. He is running for the newly drawn 5th Assembly district which includes parts of Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Placer, Tuolumne, Mariposa, Madera and Mono counties.

But not Sacramento.

So it’s a bit odd to find a four-page, glossy color 8½ by 11 inch mailer touting Bigelow’s candidacy in the mailbox of a suburban Sacramento home.    Read more »

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Peace of Mind

“As long as I have $20 billion some place, I feel comfortable.”

  — Warren Buffett, May 5, 2012    Read more »

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Warren Buffett on His Prostate Cancer

“(I feel) terrific. This is really a minor event. The survival numbers are way up. Basically, I seem to have a good immune system. Maybe I’ll get shot by a jealous husband.

“I love what I do. I work with people I love. It’s more fun every day.”    Read more »

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Today’s Latin Lesson Is As True In Politics As Anything Else

Fama Nihil Est Celerius

“Nothing is Swifter Than Rumor”    Read more »

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Happy Birthday Maestro Machiavelli!

May 3, 1469 is the birthday of Niccolo Machiavelli, the political philosopher, whose book The Prince has come to be synonymous with the axiom that the end justifies the means.

Born in Florence, Machiavelli attempts in his most famous book, in the words of Bertrand Russell, to “discover, from history and from contemporary events, how principalities are won, how they are held and how they are lost.”    Read more »

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“Absentee Florist” Bill Advances

An almost perennial effort to prevent florists from misrepresenting the location of their business was approved by the Assembly on May 3.

Sent to the Senate on a bipartisan 60-11 vote by the 80-member lower house, the bill is the fifth such measure in 13 years to prevent call centers, potentially located hundreds or thousands of miles away, from using a local city or neighborhood in their name and duping consumers into believing they are patronizing a “local” florist.    Read more »

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The Bribery of Vote-Trading

“A method of legislative bribery not yet reached by the criminal statutes is that of vote-trading; a form of intimidation not yet defined in the codes is that of threatening a legislator with defeat of his important measures to force him to vote against his convictions.

“Eventually both these corrupt practices will be properly classified, both in public opinion and the law,.    Read more »

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You Don’t Say…

“Back of the ineffectiveness of our legislative system is the indifference of the public.

“The Legislature continues ineffective for precisely the same reason that at the special election — at which measures of the greatest importance to the state were voted upon — out of a registration of approximately 1,250,000 only 260,000 voted.”    Read more »

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Why Don’t You Go Foie Gras Yourself!

(Editor’s Note: It is always a pleasure for California’s Capitol to showcase the erudition and linguistic élan of former Senate President Pro Tempore John Burton, who now heads the state Democratic Party. While background on the issue which is the subject of the missive below isn’t  necessary to appreciate the contents, here’s a synopsis:)

In 2004, a bill by Burton — SB 1520 — was signed into law which said that, effective July 1, 2012, it was illegal for birds including, but not limited to, a duck or goose to be forced to “consume more food than a typical bird of the same species would consume voluntarily” in order to enlarge their liver “beyond normal size.”    Read more »

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