Free Republic

In the movies, the hero often signs off on a major agreement by slashing his hand or thumb and sharing blood with his new partner. In politics, it's a lot less messy, since the partners just share money. Over the weekend, the California Teachers Association agreed to back all six of the budget measures on the May 19 special election ballot. It's a move that likely drew a deep sigh of relief from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ... The deal was sealed Monday when the CTA gave $47,500 to Budget Reform Now, the Schwarzenegger-backed group leading the campaign effort. On that...

The old admonition, "When something seems too good to be true, it probably is," virtually screams from accounts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to "privatize" the California Lottery. Actually, to give credit where it's due, it's a Goldman Sachs/Lehman Brothers proposal; the governor is the pitch-man. The details are subject to negotiation, but the deal works something like this: The state turns over the California Lottery and monopoly control over lottery gambling in California to a private consortium (led by Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, could it be?) for the next 40 years. In exchange, the consortium pays the state...

To close California’s huge budget gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a plan: get a Wall Street investment firm to lend the state $15 billion against future proceeds from its rather unsuccessful lottery program, with the lending firm taking large risks for a low-yield return. And if that fails, the state’s sales tax will go up a penny over the next few years. The lottery idea with a tax increase only as a backup reflects the severity of California’s $17.2 billion budget gap and Mr. Schwarzenegger’s unwillingness to reverse course on a longstanding pledge not to raise taxes and to continue...

Regardless of when a new budget deal gets passed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still is going to need help from California's voters to close the state's $42 billion budget gap, and that help may not be easy to come by. Although the Legislature spent the weekend in nearly continuous session, trying to find the votes to pass the new fiscal plan, legislators still face the prospect of putting billions of dollars in borrowing, revenue shifts and budget revisions on the ballot in a statewide special election later this year. "Several key components of the budget agreements need to go back to...