-By Warner Todd Huston
Despite all the talk of fixing it, California’s budget is still a mess. One of those “fixes” was implemented last summer when the state Legislature increased revenue projections by $4 billion to avoid balancing the budget. Of course, the problem with using such “phantom money” is that it often has a habit of disappearing when you need it most. And it has disappeared just when money for schools is needed. Now deep cuts are on the table. The people lose again.
Naturally the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently reported that the state will receive virtually none of the $4 billion in projected revenue, forcing the state to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks. On the table are major cuts to the education budget, including shortening the school year by a week, not to mention cuts to in-home healthcare programs, and programs for people with developmental disabilities.
Obviously Californian’s budget needs all the help it can get but it looks like it’s business as usual in Sacramento. For instance, an upcoming ballot measure sponsored by a career politician would baffle anyone that truly understands the mess California is in. The so-called California Cancer Research Act coming before voters in June, asks California voters to raise taxes by nearly $1 billion for a whole new perpetual bureaucracy. That is unacceptable to voters. Maddeningly this new program doesn’t even guarantee that the money will be spent in the state! Apparently former state Sen. Pro Tem Don Perata, the career politician pushing the measure, thinks Californians who already paying some of the highest taxes in the nation should reach deeper into their pockets just to potentially send that money across state lines to benefit others. And all the while the budget for the education for those same taxpayer’s kids is about to be slashed.
So, what is the “solution” proposed by Democrats in Sacramento? Raise taxes, of course.
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California Ballot Boondoggle Sends Tax Dollars Out of State”
With the U.S. debt now officially over $15 trillion, to pay it off each working American would now owe more to the federal debt than they make in a year according to a new report by the U.S. Treasury Department.
General Motors was too big to fail. This is why President Obama had to ride in on his white steed with billions of taxpayers dollars in hand to bailout GM rechristening it Government Motors. Besides, we were told it would be a great deal, a money maker, right? Well, not so much. The Administration has reported a dramatic increase in the money We The People have lost on the GM bailout.
Mark Ruffalo — you know, 
Patten Industries has been guided by four generations of Pattens, the company having been founded by B. C. Patten, Sr. in 1933. But Illinois has not been good to the company or its employees over the last decade or so. Unfortunately, the company has gone from employing some 700 employees in 2006 to only about 400 today due to the harsh economic climate in the Land of Lincoln.
The identity of the man responsible for loosing a few shots at the White House last week has been made public by the D.C. police but one little fact is being buried by every news report about this guy. He is linked to the Occupy movement. Yet the media refuses to make the connection explicit. Imagine how the media would be wailing if the guy was a Tea Partier! But that this shooter was part of the Occupy movement seems somehow unimportant to the Old Media.
In her exclusive interview with Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D, AZ), ABCs Diane Sawyer began with a retrospective of the terrible crime committed against the Congresswoman by a mentally disturbed, a-political gunman. But true to her left-wing agenda, Sawyer could not resist illicitly linking Tea Party activists, anti-Obamacare sentiment, and even Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to what was perpetrated against Rep. Giffords on that terrible day.
It was only hours after the shooting occurred on January 8, 2011, that left-wing activists, purported journalists, and Democrat operatives alike began 
Over this past weekend several hundred conservative bloggers, writers, political operatives, and Tea Patiers got together in Denver, Colorado to attend a conference aimed toward helping these activists be more effective n their efforts. But conservative activism wasn’t the only theme on the schedule when the event was crashed by denizens of Occupy Denver who came to protest. What they came to protest was a tad unclear, but isn’t that just of a piece with the whole Occupy “movement”?
Denver, Colorado- 
Warning, here you will see me praise President Barack Obama. Last week the President issued a directive for his various agencies to cut down department spending and one of those ways he targeted to achieve that was to cut out “swag” — items such as coffee mugs, pens, or other items with department logos that are given away for free, items we are paying for with our tax money.
Last week 16 dirty New York cops went on trial for all sorts of criminal behavior. From dealing drugs, to assault and grand larceny, and “unrelated corruption,” these cops are proving to be some very crooked characters. But fellow officers don’t care about that. They have ginned themselves up to act like the punks and scumbags they are supposed to be putting behind bars all due to their police union and its agitation over the trials.