California: Dan Walters

You can reach Sacred Cow at 1705 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010. All my past whining about Arnold should give me a little credibility here: In some ways, I don't think Dan Walters gives this budget its due. I...

I disagree with Dan Walters about a few things, but he is just about the only prominent member of the Sacramento press corps to regularly go hard against its groupthink. After Arnold's re-election in November 2006, when the media were...

The LAT's election team reports on the governor's last-ditch effort to convince voters to vote Yes tomorrow . " Battling anger and indifference on the part of California voters, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger implored them Sunday not to make the state "the poster child for dysfunction" by defeating a host of measures on Tuesday's ballot that seek to restructure the state's bleak finances.

"The governor's visits to three African American churches in Los Angeles came as proponents and opponents of the ballot measures marshaled the last of the millions of dollars they have collected for the special election. Schwarzenegger said Sunday he had been told that about 25% of voters are expected to show up, a paltry percentage that underscores the difficulty of the quest for reliable voters.

In both the Friday and Saturday editions of the Los Angeles Times, right on page A1 above the fold, there was a graphic of a "tax calculator," which projected the additional taxes an individual would pay based on certain factors like income, number of dependents and values of vehicles.  They have a corresponding tax calculator on their website where users can type in the data and get the precise tax hit coming to them.  The Sacramento Bee has the same thing.  Talk radio was having a field day with these calculators over the past couple days, getting people to call in and disclose their statistics and telling them how much money they will owe.