The Sacramento Bee

Dems Intend to Spend, But With What? (The article appears in the Sacramento Bee, CA and the Youngstown Vindicator, OH)

"It is getting a little bit discouraging that promises that are on the wrong side of the ledger … are starting to add up. It gets more and more difficult to see how any of the candidates can meet the full portfolio of promises" they've made, said Maya Macguineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a… more

As Ward Connerly prepares initiatives to abolish race-based affirmative action in five more states, New America Foundation fellow Gregory Rodriguez, no fan of Connerly's movement, has published an eye-opening book that nonetheless reinforces deep questions about the nation's racial assumptions and categories.

Connerly is the Sacramento businessman and ex-regent of the University of California who drove the successful campaigns overturning race-based preference policies in public education, employment and contracting in California, Washington and Michigan. He's now planning similar campaigns in Arizona,… more

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Núñez and Don Perata have found common ground on the central goal of health care reform: to cover the millions of California workers and their families who don’t get health insurance through their jobs and can’t afford to buy it themselves. The harder part, to no one’s surprise, is agreeing on a way to pay for it.

The governor set out this year to take a big step closer toward universal health coverage… more

Here's an interesting factoid to ponder on Labor Day. The vast majority of working Americans pay a greater share of their federal taxes as payroll taxes, not income taxes. In fact, 86 percent of wage earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Why should this matter?

First, the payroll tax, which pays for Social Security and Medicare, is regressive -- that is, lower- and middle-income workers pay a higher share of their income in… more

A debate winding to a close in Washington could undermine ambitious health care proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrats in the Legislature that would provide coverage to every uninsured child in California.The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a bipartisan compromise created a decade ago from the embers of the Clinton universal health care plan, expires on Sept. 30.As federal lawmakers prepare to leave this week for a monthlong summer recess, the U.S. Senate… more

The Bush administration seems to be reeling from policy failure to scandal.

Key administration officials have resigned, President Bush’s approval ratings are in the high 20s, with support dwindling even among Republicans and high-ranking military officers. Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who ran Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential campaign, has said, "The country doesn’t believe George W. Bush, it doesn’t trust him, and with 19 months to go it’s only going to get worse." The government of George W. Bush clearly has… more

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, legislative leaders and a coalition of business executives presented a united front Thursday, calling for an overhaul of California's health care system.But midway through the legislative session that ends Sept. 14, Democrats and Republicans remain divided on how to reduce costs and the ranks of the more than 6.5 million Californians without insurance."Everyone is in sync that we need health care reform," the governor said at a Capitol news conference to tout the… more

Five hundred million dollars is a lot of money -- especially for a public university. When the giant oil company BP announced Feb. 1 that it had chosen the University of California, Berkeley, to lead the largest academic-industry research consortium in U.S. history, University of California officials appeared giddy.

If the deal is approved, BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, will give $500 million over 10 years to create a multidisciplinary Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley. Berkeley would partner with… more

The alliance between the oil giant BP and the University of California, Berkeley, stands out because of its $500 million price tag, its commercial scope and the potential for BP to exert excessive influence over the academic research. But it isn’t an isolated case.

The second largest such partnership is a 10-year, $225-million deal Stanford University signed with Exxon Mobil and other energy firms in 2002 to fund a Global Climate and Energy Project.

The Stanford deal was controversial from the… more

Two seemingly unrelated developments last week tell us a lot about immigration and the public's attitude toward it.One was the conservative reaction to a bill introduced in the Legislature that would give a $500 savings account to every child born in California.The other was a study by the Public Policy Institute of California concluding that immigration -- legal and illegal -- tends to increase wages for everyone except earlier immigrants.The savings bill was introduced… more