California: John Chiang

People in California are angry.  Thousands showed up on a Saturday afternoon to protest the tax increases and the lies of Sacramento.

Wait to they realize that Democrat Controller John Chiang has announced we need MORE tax increases and real spending cuts, no later than June 30, 110 days from now.

The KFI talk show hosts, John and Ken, are opposing all the measures on the May 19th Special Election.  Sacramento just borrowed $11 billion to get us through to June 30.  If the people vote NO to borrowing $5 billion from the lottery (to be repaid with education funds) and if the people vote not to steal from Trust Funds, we will be in even more trouble.

The long history of troubled state computer projects is continuing with an attempt to modernize the payroll system for state workers.

State Controller John Chiang quietly terminated a $69 million contract last month with BearingPoint, a large Virginia-based firm that declared bankruptcy last week to restructure its debt.

The state payroll system, more than three decades old, uses an outdated computer language, COBOL, said to be spoken now mainly by an older generation of programmers, many of whom are retired.

The balky system was cited by Chiang, a Democrat, when he rejected Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order last year to pay state workers the federal minimum wage, $6.55 an hour, until the Legislature passed a state budget.

Abel Maldonado and his toady Brandon Gesicki have been all over the news pushing the frame that Controller John Chiang is wasting a million dollars on office furniture:
The same day the governor vetoed the Democrats' budget proposal, the Controller's office requested $924,500,000 worth of new office furniture from this fiscal year! How is that acceptable? Here is an elected official who is in the press every day talking about cutting services, stopping checks to welfare recipients and issuing IOUs to hardworking Californians. But at the exact same time, he is requesting new office furniture. This disgusting and disingenuous behavior has to end.

Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, said he's ready to vote for the budget after scoring major concessions from legislative leaders as part of a plan to bridge a $40 billion deficit. The only remaining question is whether two-thirds of both houses will provide enough votes to give Maldonado what he wants.

As part of Maldonado's negotiated package, lawmakers will place on the June 2010 ballot an open primary proposal intended to favor more candidates such as him. The proposal would impact congressional and state races in 2012 and beyond. Under the plan, the top two candidates in a primary would face off in a general election.