Sacramento Bee

Sacramento Bee | Plan to Open Up CalPERS Reflects Worry About Inadequate Saving for Retirement 

Investing for retirement is the financial equivalent of eating your vegetables: It's good for you, but sometimes downright distasteful.

Now a proposal making its way through the California Legislature has people talking about whether the state can make putting aside retirement money more palatable.

The plan would let private businesses and workers funnel direct payroll deposits into a retirement investment account. The California Public Employees' Retirement… more

Sacramento Bee | California Assembly Panel Passes State-run IRA Proposal

A proposal to open California's retirement system to private sector workers prompted questions Wednesday about government competing with investment firms and the pension system's ability to handle the unique program.

"We just don't know if it's going to work yet," Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, said of the proposal to have the California Public Employees' Retirement System offer IRA accounts to workers whose employers don't offer retirement savings… more

FCC auction may reshape telecom field (Sacramento Bee) Unlike traditional cell phone or Wi-Fi signals, the 700-MHz spectrum can sneak through concrete walls, foliage, heavy rain and other barriers to wireless reception. "It's why you can get TV in your basement with rabbit ears," said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. ...

President Bush's veto of a bill that would have allowed California to achieve near-universal health care for children comes at a critical juncture in the state.Employer-based coverage is decreasing, enrollment in the state's Healthy Families program is increasing and efforts by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrats to overhaul the health care system have not yielded a solution a month into a special legislative session.Moreover, new Bush administration rules would make it harder for California to enroll… more

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a political conference Thursday that it may cost California money to advance its presidential primary by four months, but that the campaign has the potential to bring more federal dollars to the state."We can turn $60 million into billions and billions of dollars," the Republican governor said during the conference at a Sacramento hotel. "It's the greatest investment California ever can make."Schwarzenegger said that after ignoring California for more than three decades,… more

Americans can't save. They rank it right up there with -- oh, cleaning out the closet. Recent research confirms that the national savings rate in the United States dipped below zero percent in 2005 and stayed there for the better part of the year. The last time that happened was during the Great Depression.

For most of us to save money, someone else needs to do it for us. That's why so many of us have our employers deduct money… more

Redistricting reform in California has become a roller coaster ride. Ever since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched his effort last January for a mid-decade redistricting by a panel of retired judges, the ups and downs have been dizzying as the governor and Legislature have tried to outmaneuver each other.

In the latest downward dip of the roller coaster, recently a state court threw Proposition 77, the governor's vehicle for redistricting reform, off the ballot due to a clerical mistake--the proponents sent… more

The bad news first. California now ranks last nationally in home ownership. It also has the fourth worst "asset poverty" rate in the nation, meaning that nearly a third of the state's households are on such a financial brink that they'd fall below the poverty level within three months after an unexpected hardship like a job loss or medical emergency.

California's future economy depends on more people gaining access to home ownership and higher education. But it's difficult enough to… more

California is about to hire a new secretary of state. If former state Sen. Bruce McPherson is confirmed by the Legislature, which seems likely, he will have to decide whether to continue reforms to California's election practices begun by his predecessor, Kevin Shelley.

His decisions will be crucial to the future of California's elections.

Just because Shelley's administration imploded in a cloud of controversy does not mean all its programs were flawed. For instance, Shelley cracked down on the revolving door… more

Sacramento rests on the edge of what could prove a difficult decade, which could either make or break its momentum toward becoming one of the regional winners in the new century.

For much of the late '90s and in the early 2000s, Sacramento seemed to be finding itself and spreading its wings. Boosted by an ever-expanding government sector, the region also was becoming an important "spillover" region for the Silicon Valley and for educated professionals fleeing the congested, overpriced Bay Area… more