Missed News From The Holiday Season

California still has a budget problem.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic leadership negotiated during the holiday weeks over whether Schwarzenegger would sign their majority-vote package of $18 billion in cuts and taxes.

First they were very close...in the words of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg. Then they were far away...in the words of Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear.

Then, on New Year's Eve, Schwarzenegger administration officials unveiled the 2009-10 budget proposal to close the roughly $40 billion deficit.

It was the sixth Schwarzenegger budget proposal of 2008.

The new elements include reducing the dependent care exemption on state income tax returns from the current $309 per dependent to $103; carrying over some of the deficit into the 2010-11 fiscal year; borrowing funds from voter-created programs for the mentally ill and pre-kindergarten children, and borrowing $4.7 billion from the private sector.

The budget proposes to change state worker health care, reduce the length of the school year, save a billion in prison and parolee costs, and blow up some of those old boxes, among other things.

But there weren't any explosives on hand, so the chances of blowing up any boxes aren't very good. Not to mention that you still need legislators to vote for your plan - and there aren't any votes for the box blowing Governor's plan.

The Los Angeles Times reported more bad budget news: California fire-fighting expenditures topped $1 billion in 2008.

The California Teachers Association, meanwhile, is taking matters into its own hands, filing an initiative to raise the sales tax by a penny. "It's time for stable and independent funding that cannot be cut by the Legislature or diverted for other uses," CTA President David Sanchez said in a statement. Evidently it isn't enough that they get almost 50% of state expenditures to K-12 education. They want still more. I am not opposed to more funding for education. I am opposed to more funding for the same system with the same problems that still isn't working. That's simply insanity.

The Department of Fish and Game labeled 2008 the "Year of Extreme Poachers and Dangerous Encounters," for what it's worth.