Free Republic

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that California can thank legislative dysfunction for the recent passage of Proposition 11, which prevents state lawmakers from drawing their own district boundaries in 2011. The Republican governor appeared at the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento along with leaders from government watchdog groups and the carpenters' union to celebrate Proposition 11. For Schwarzenegger, it marked a return to the stage of his famous 2003 recall campaign rally in which he called for an overhaul of California's political system. Among the proposals he announced was a redistricting change similar to Proposition 11. "At that...

<p>California lawmakers frustrated over the state budget impasse pointed fingers Thursday and accused each other of failing to get serious about closing the $15.2 billion deficit.</p> <p>A rancorous debate erupted on the Assembly floor after Republicans attempted to bring the Democrats' tax-raising budget plan to a vote that surely would have failed.</p>

Regional transportation and political leaders are increasingly coming to the conclusion that the only way to keep the chronically congested Washington region moving is tolls, and plenty of them. A report to be released Wednesday pushes a regionwide system that would place tolls on most existing area highways, bridges into the District, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, George Washington Memorial Parkway and such major District thoroughfares as New York Avenue. The key to success, the authors say, is the comprehensiveness of the network....

Tackling Gridlock : Arizona Should Embrace Private Infrastructure Investment Leonard Gilroy, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 12, 2008 Like most other states, Arizona is facing a perfect storm in transportation. Our growing demand for roads is outstripping the supply, creating ever more gridlock. And there's barely enough funding to maintain existing roads, much less build the new ones needed to handle our rapid growth. Lastly, the fuel tax-our primary funding mechanism-has run out of gas, with increasing vehicle fuel efficiency steadily eroding its revenue-generating power. Without new funding sources, we'll face L.A.-style gridlock, and our economic competitiveness will suffer. To...

Legislative leaders said Thursday that more taxes would be needed to fill a projected $14-billion budget gap next year, and the state Senate president said a healthcare overhaul -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's priority this year -- will have to wait. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) said lawmakers would have to consider raising a host of taxes, including those on Internet purchases and on foreign companies that do business in California. "We've got to close those tax loopholes," Nuñez told reporters at a news conference. "We can generate billions by doing that." Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) said...

SOLANA BEACH – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other elected officials yesterday broke ground on a $168 million project to extend the car pool lanes on Interstates 5 and 805. With a congested I-5 as a backdrop, the governor said it would be the first construction job funded in California with money from Proposition 1B, the transportation bond measure approved by state voters last year. Schwarzenegger said the lanes mark the start of a new wave of transportation improvements, saying it's time “to bulldoze our state out of gridlock.” The San Diego Association of Governments, working with Caltrans, wants to add...

Taxi Workers Alliance Members May Curb Cabs In GPS-Privacy Debate (CBS) NEW YORK After this month's transit meltdown, the last thing commuters want to deal with is a taxi strike that could have crippling effects on a city whose residents and tourists alike rely on the Taxi and Limousine Commission. A scary reality, however, is that such a strike could occur -- and in less than two weeks. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance -- which accounts for more than 8,000 city drivers -- is threatening to curb their cabs on Sept. 5 if the Taxi and Limousine Commission does...

This was to be the year of big ambitions in California politics. In January, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ever eager to put his stamp on outsized ideas, proposed a $12 billion overhaul of the state's health care system. It would provide universal coverage and give relief to the state's 6.5 million uninsured, a bold plan he hoped would become a national template. At the same time, he wanted a $5.9 billion makeover of California's complex network of reservoirs, pumps and canals to help the state weather future droughts and accommodate an ever-expanding population. And to increase competition for legislative seats, the...

In the wake of the Minneapolis bridge disaster, transportation journalists are searching for local bridges in danger of collapse. This is already stimulating proposals for huge tax increases for new infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the U.S. has a $1.5 trillion backlog of infrastructure projects. But this number should be taken with a grain of salt, as it merely sums the wish lists of more than a dozen different interest groups. Efforts to fulfill these wishes would become pork fests providing absolutely no assurance that money will be spent where it is really needed. The problem...

Now, many of the policy advocates who have spent months working on healthcare bills are starting to panic. The window of opportunity for the state to change its healthcare system in a meaningful way is rapidly closing, they say. Robert Phillips, senior program officer with the nonprofit California Endowment, is imploring lawmakers to continue working on healthcare reform despite the lack of a budget. "Every day they have this impasse it serves as an excuse to avoid making hard choices they need to make to deal with broad healthcare reform," he said. But such calls for action are largely being...

Two years ago, the Paseo del Norte/Interstate 25/Jefferson corridor was a enough of a bad dream that the feds ponied up $20 million toward designing a fix. Two years later, negotiating the route has become a nightmare. Around 100,000 vehicles go through Paseo/I-25 daily. And two years later, there's still just $20 million in the Paseo-fix kitty— although rebuilding the interchange will run at least $200 million more than that. And two years later, there's still no definitive plan to rebuild the intersections, no environmental assessment, no right-of-way preservation, no timeline for construction. Maybe the New Mexico Department of Transportation's...

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/303306_joel12.html Peer into future after car ban -- it isn't prettyMonday, February 12, 2007By JOEL CONNELLYP-I COLUMNISTA longtime friend came up at a party last week, asking what it would take to get me on board the campaign that seeks to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and not replace it.I cited a prediction by Department of Transportation boss Doug MacDonald that the "street option" would mean 12 hours of daily congestion on Interstate 5. "Good!" said my friend, once on the Seattle School Board. "Cars suck," added a woman chiming in on our exchange.Inspired by her persuasive depth,...

Metro Considers Increasing Rail FaresService Cuts Are Also Among Ideas to Plug $116 Million Shortfall By Lena H. SunWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, December 11, 2006; A01 Metro faces a $116 million budget shortfall the next fiscal year, raising the possibility of fare increases, reduced bus and rail service and higher contributions from area taxpayers, according to budget documents and interviews with board members....The proposed changes are part of a $1.2 billion operating plan that will be made public Thursday during the board's budget committee meeting. The fiscal 2008 spending plan, which would take effect July 1, also includes 5 percent...

It seems to have been accepted without challenge that the President is now a lame duck because his party no longer controls Congress. In reality, of course, this merely restores post-war normality to Washington. If Presidents who do not control Congress are lame ducks, then Truman, Eisenhower and Clinton were reduced to that status only two years in to their presidencies, and yet managed to achieve re-election nonetheless. Poor Presidents Nixon and Reagan were never able to get their presidencies off the ground, and began as lame ducks from day one. Perhaps this is why those presidents are universally regarded...

WASHINGTON -- Now that voters have rejected one-party rule in Washington, can a president of one party and a Congress led by the other play nicely enough to accomplish anything in the next two years? It's been done in the past. Still, President Bush and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will have to put aside at least some of their pre-election rancor and suppress any desire to get even. For his part, Bush tried to move past the bitter tone of the campaign within hours of its end by granting a top demand of the Democrats: the ouster...

Americans foresee "more gridlock" in government if Democrats take over the House and/or the Senate after elections this fall, a CNN poll shows. And while the poll shows a majority of Americans would favor probes by a Democratic Congress into Bush administration actions, most Americans oppose impeaching President Bush. Seventy percent expect "gridlock and stalemate" while 27 percent believe there would be "cooperation between the two parties." Three percent had no opinion... 69 percent said Bush should not be impeached or removed from office, with 30 percent saying he should be impeached or removed from office.

ST. HEDWIG, Texas – From the parking lot jammed with pickups, past the tables with campaign T-shirts and into the overflowing high school auditorium, Carole Keeton Strayhorn works the linoleum aisle as if it's her own political rally. And she has Gov. Rick Perry to thank. Mrs. Strayhorn has become a regular fixture at the federally mandated public hearings on the Perry-backed Trans-Texas Corridor – a wide network of toll roads, railways and pipelines to parallel Interstate 35. And she has used the almost nightly occasions to thump the governor and bring hundreds of potential supporters to their feet. So...

With California's "year of reform" skidding off the runway because of pilot error, the cynical view of the Golden State may be the only one that makes sense: The state is dysfunctional, ungovernable and worse, the public doesn't really seem to care. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has admitted that he bungled last month's special election. His political low standing has emboldened special interests and left legislative Democrats feeling secure that they can duck the state's toughest problems. The year of reform will be followed by the 2006 election when almost every state office will be on the ballot. Politicians running for...

One Republican who is a maverick on this subject is conservative Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, who received 13.5% of the vote for governor in the Gray Davis recall election and plans to run next year for lieutenant governor. McClintock has long thought that the budget should be passed by a simple majority vote. "A perverse result of the supermajority requirement is that it does not constrain state spending," McClintock says. "What it does is bid up the cost of the budget with each additional vote. Every additional vote comes with louder calls for higher spending.