The California budget that wasn't born on July 1, or Aug. 1, may also be overdue -- absent serious hard labor -- come Sept. 1. (BTW, a quick check shows that, since 1992, the latest date a state budget was enacted was Sept. 5, 2002.) Consider the possible scenarios playing out: Democrats leaning heavily on tax hikes to offset a $15 ...

Was paging through ''Healthy People 2010,'' an updated report by the Central Valley Health Policy Institute that ought to cause shame and action on the part of political leaders. (Hard to imagine, though, 'cause the 2003 report hasn't sparked much.) The 40-plus page Fresno State report is a bible of bleakness. Residents in eight Valley counties ...

Sometimes it's smarter to eat crunchy peanut butter on burned wheat toast than to open your mouth -- or pound on your keyboard. Cases to consider: From an Orange County Register editorial, critical of the Schwarzenegger-Nunez notion of health care reform: ''But health care is no more a right endowed by our Creator than is a job or a pension or ...

If the choices were only that simple. I'm talking about California health care reform. The Assembly has passed the Schwarzenegger-Nunez near-universal coverage bill. Senate President pro tem Don Perata is saying, not so fast -- no Senate review until January, after some costing out. There will be a clear winner when all this plays out. But don't ...

Fight. Fracas. Cutback. Logjam. Gridlock. Quandary. Of such words are headlines made in California politics in recent days. They relate to one or more of these topics: the state's $10 billion or so budget deficit; health care reform legislation; Proposition 93, which could alter legislators' term limits. Reporters and columnists at the ...