Budget

On the eve of the State of the Union address, word leaked that President Obama was going to call for a multiyear freeze on "nonsecurity discretionary spending," in an apparent attempt to mollify independent voters anxious about the deficit. The reaction in the progressive blogosphere was fast and furious. "Barack Herbert Hoover Obama?" asked Brad DeLong on his blog (Grasping Reality With Opposable Thumbs), while Paul Krugman wrote a blog post titled "Obama Liquidates Himself" and others blasted the president as "lame," an "idiot," a leader with a "self-inflicted lobotomy."

When the president unveils his 2011 budget next week, he will propose capping "non-security" discretionary spending at its current level of about $450 billion for three years, saving roughly $250 billion over ten years.

The freeze does not include defense, veterans' affairs, homeland security and some international programs.

Cross posted at Fox & Hounds Daily

Good news. We finally have a bipartisan consensus on what ails California. Everything, absolutely everything, is Gov. Schwarzenegger's fault.

Even when the governor is right.

My colleague Joe Mathews participated in a live Politico webchat last week on the worrisome state of California. While the discussion ranged from pensions to prisons to a constitutional convention, these questions were particularlly interesting:

For Immediate Release

Governor Schwarznegger addressed California this morning with his final State of the State speech. He spoke on the need for pension reform and an increase in higher education spending. The Governor also called for an increase in federal funding for California while criticizing the current provisions in the Senate health reform bill.

New America Foundation experts released the following statements:

On December 14, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform hosted a public event, moderated by David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal, to announce the release of its report, Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt. The six panelists included a distinguished group of fiscal experts, including among their many titles, former chairmen and ranking members of the House Budget Committee (Bill Frenzel, Jim Nussle, and Jim Jones) and two former CBO directors (Alice Rivlin and Douglas Holtz-Eakin). The panelists

The four-month-old California state budget is already out of balance by at least $6.3 billion, according to the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst. This hour, we take up California's fiscal outlook. Mark Paul interviews with KQED. ... Original Audio

It's no easy thing for Californians to figure out exactly what the six measures on the May 19 special election ballot do. For one thing, the Legislature and Governor did their best to hide the real impact of the measures by ordering up some glossy campaign-speak to decorate the titles and summaries on the ballot. It's easier to sell "budget reform" and "lottery modernization" than a tax increase (Proposition 1A) and more borrowing (Proposition 1C).

Yesterday, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees jointly released text of a fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill that would fund federal agencies for the remainder of the fiscal year. Since fiscal year 2009 began in October, federal agencies have been operating under a continuing resolution that maintained funding at 2008 levels.

The holiday surprise in California this year was that Gov. Schwarzenegger didn't wait to the usual date -- often January 9 or 10 -- to release his budget proposal for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Instead, the proposal was released on Dec. 31. And in another departure from protocol, the governor wasn't there to do the releasing. He was at his vacation home in Idaho with his family. Finance director Mike Genest handled the chore.