Whitman’s Economic Plan Blows A Hole In California’s Budget, Reduces Jobs And Services

Meg Whitman’s Economic Plan Blows A Hole In California’s Budget, Reduces Jobs And Services

Meg Whitman is running for governor of California. She has outlined her plan to reduce the states $20 billion deficit and grow its economy. (You can see her plan here: http://www.megwhitman.com/platform.php). According to a new Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis by Michael Reich, an Economics Professor at The University of California at Berkeley, Whitman’s economic plan — outlined in Meg 2010, Building a New California — is “likely to have negative effects on jobs and economic growth and to deepen the state’s budget crisis.”

A group of 20 California economists signed a letter today stating that “the evidence and theory that Whitman uses to diagnose California’s problems are unscientific and an unsound basis for policy. As a result, her diagnosis and her proposed economic policies are both deeply flawed…If implemented, Whitman’s program would worsen California’s budget malaise and its economic performance.”

Sounds to me like change we can't afford.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/10/whitman-econ-report/

A Budget Cut That Helps

A budget cut that helps

Sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2010

 

The budget crisis is so bad that many California school districts are planning to cut several days from the school year ("School year shrinking as budget crisis grows," July 19).  

Nobody appears to have considered a much more obvious way of saving money, one that will help instead of hurt: Eliminating unnecessary tests.

Let's start with the High School Exit Exam.

Analyst Jo Ann Behm has estimated that the Exit Exam cost California about $600 million a year. So far, studies show that high school exit exams do not result in higher employment, higher earnings, or improved academic achievement. 

Eliminating this useless exam would, by itself, take care of about 5% of the state's budget shortfall.

Stephen Krashen


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iSent from my iPhone

Dumb-ass of the week

Sessions congratulates Lilly Ledbetter for law in her name that he opposed.

In 2009, Congress passed a law named after former Goodyear plant manager Lilly Ledbetter to help ensure that women are not discriminated against on the job. After nearly 20 years working at a plant in Alabama, Ledbetter found out she was being paid far less than her 15 male counterparts and sued. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled against her.
Congress then took up a bill to fight wage discrimination, and President Obama made it the first billhe signed into law. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Ledbetter during Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) praised Ledbetter’s namesake bill, congratulating her on “moving the Congress”:

SESSIONS: Ms. Ledbetter, good to see you. I went past that Goodyear plant a lot of times, according to my wife, from Gadsden, who grew up in Gadsden.And congratulations on moving the Congress to alter the law in a way that, I think, will not allow that kind of thing to happen again.

It’s ironic that Sessions would laud Ledbetter’s efforts, considering he was one only 23 senators to vote against Ledbetter’s bill. What a dumb-ass.

Source: http://bit.ly/cHtsaK