Free Republic

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...

On Oct. 3, 1985, you could have stood in a long line outside a liquor store a few blocks from the Capitol for a chance to buy a small piece of cardboard and win a big sum of money. Today, you can do the same thing – only with no line. That, in 50 words, is the story of the California Lottery – a 23-year-old anachronism that is among the worst performing of the country's 42 state lotteries. While many other states' lotteries set sales records in the fiscal year that ended June 30, California lottery officials announced that revenues...