Free Republic

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to completely eliminate the state’s welfare program for families, medical insurance for low-income children and Cal Grants cash assistance to college and university students.

On the other hand, I don't really see another way out of it. If Uncle Sugar bails out California, California will not fix its problems. Perhaps you want Obama to make it fix the problems, using the same competence, power, and can-do spirit with which he has repaired all the holes in the banking and auto manufacturing sectors. But Obma is not in a good position to do this. California Democrats are a huge part of his governing coalition. All Obama can do is shovel money into the bottomless pit of California's political system.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the state budget impasse Thursday as "very damaging" and added: "California deserves much better than that." He's right, but probably not as he intended. The fact that the budget is more than a month overdue is not the most shameful aspect. It is that he and most legislators are willing to enact another deficit budget at a moment when revenues are flattening and the gap is destined to widen. Schwarzenegger and others who want the current version of the budget enacted -- which it would be if one more Republican senator would vote for it --...

Superficially, at least, the Capitol's annual budget dance resembles what was happening two years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a brand-new governor. Although the budget was awash in red ink in 2004 and Schwarzenegger had been elected on his pledge to clean up the state's fiscal mess, he unilaterally raised spending by $3 billion over his original proposal in an effort to placate Democrats and, he hoped, persuade them to finish the process on time. Schwarzenegger was willing in 2004 to deepen the deficit by spending the extra $3 billion if it bought him an on-time budget, apparently in the...

No one in Washington—Republican or Democrat—is trying to balance the budget. Gone is shame about overspending or undertaxing. Every two years, the congressional budget Office publishes a fact-filled report entitled "Budget Options." This year's version is 343 pages, and flipping through it, you get a quick tour of the federal government's far-flung activities. The Army Corps of Engineers spends about $800 million annually to maintain and improve the inland waterways, the Office of National Drug Control Policy buys about $100 million in anti-drug ads and the Department of Transportation provides about $100 million in subsidies for "essential" air service to...