Free Republic

SACRAMENTO -- Saying "the wolf is back" at the door, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a constitutional amendment in his State of the State address Tuesday that would force automatic cuts to the state budget to avoid large deficits like the one he is now facing. The governor wants to trigger the cuts when state finances start falling into the red and create a surplus when revenues come in higher than expected. It would be capped at 15 percent of the budget and could be used only to help with the next downturn. Schwarzenegger gleaned the idea from former President Bill...

WASHINGTON, March 6 — With Congress heading into a politically perilous budget season, influential House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years, balance the budget and drastically shrink three cabinet agencies. The legislation, part of a push by some Republicans to re-establish themselves as champions of fiscal restraint, was taking shape as President Bush struck a similar theme on Monday by asking Congress to grant him line-item veto power to eliminate federal spending that he might judge wasteful. "We can't be all things to all people...

<p>Now that Saturday's 5 p.m. deadline has passed, Californians should revisit the isle of sanity.</p> <p>While only about a fourth of the 500 people who had picked up filing papers actually turned them in, this ballot will still have more than a hundred candidates. Democrats ended up with only one prominent name on the ballot, improving their chances of holding the office against the four well-known Republicans.</p>