California Insider

At a press event today at a Sacramento elementary school, Phil Angelides said if he were governor, he would have the state pay the disputed $3.2 billion in education funding without adding the money to the base upon which future school budgets are built. This contradicts what he said during the primary when he pledged to add the money to the base. That statement put him ahead of what even the CTA was asking for. Now he is back in sync with the union. But since the union is also back in sync with the governor, Phil's only real difference with Schwarzenegger is over how long it should take to add that money to the budget.

On a related matter, Angelides likes to say that the governor "took the money from the schools." It's almost as if he thinks Schwarzenegger -- and the two-thirds of lawmakers who approved those budgets -- personally pocketed the money. Of course, the money they "took" was actually spent on other things they considered a higher priority at the time, like health care for poor kids, aid to the aged, blind and disabled, and public safety.

Health benefits for retirees are the next looming obligation for taxpayers. Orange County has a plan to move its obligation off the books, though it's not clear how that helps.

Until I read this story I hadn't realized that Schwarzenegger was the recipient of this year's "pink brick" award from the organizers of San Francisco's Gay Pride parade, given to the public figure who has most hurt the gay rights cause. If that's the case, the cause must be doing even better than I thought.

Nathan Smith suggests that we regulate immigration by taxing it.