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Dan Walters

Editorials

EDITORIAL: Let Europe defend herself

With massive military cutbacks looming as the war in Afghanistan (or at least our active involvement in it) winds down, difficult choices will have to be made.

Feb 12, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…

EDITORIAL: What others are saying

A selection of recent editorials from around the state and region:

Feb 11, 2012 | 12:00 am | Loading…

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WALTERS: Redevelopment may not be dead after all

By DAN WALTERS

Redevelopment is dead after more than six decades as a multibillion-dollar government economic development tool.

Feb 13, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Prop. 8 ruling aimed at Justice Kennedy

By DAN WALTERS

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has a hard-won reputation for issuing sweeping, precedent-setting and liberal rulings that are often overturned by the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Feb 10, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown tax plan takes double hit

By DAN WALTERS

Gov. Jerry Brown's campaign to balance the state budget with new income and sales taxes took a double hit Monday.

Feb 09, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown college plans would transform system

By DAN WALTERS

California's 112 community colleges, the nation's largest higher education system, may change a lot if Gov. Jerry Brown has his way.

Feb 08, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Democrats may be biggest budget hurdle

By DAN WALTERS

Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature settled on a hastily revised state budget last June ---- after Brown had vetoed legislators' first version ---- and pronounced it to be balanced and timely.

Feb 07, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Democrats distort majority-voting budget power

By DAN WALTERS

Many years of partisan wrangling over the state budget reached a climax in 2010 when public employee unions and Democratic politicians persuaded voters to pass Proposition 25, eliminating the two-thirds vote for budgets.

Feb 06, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown to scale back bullet train

By DAN WALTERS

Gov. Jerry Brown is scaling back the state's highly controversial bullet train project to keep it alive.

Feb 04, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Think Long committee falls short

By DAN WALTERS

Would it be churlish to say that the much-ballyhooed Think Long Committee for California fell short on fortitude?

Feb 03, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Politicians use power to fix ballot game

By DAN WALTERS

When a political party achieves dominance of any government, one expects that it would use its hegemony to enact its public policy agenda.

Feb 02, 2012 | 2:30 pm | Loading…

WALTERS: Signs of growth, is it enough?

By DAN WALTERS

The big news in Stanislaus County these days is that a big Internet retailer ---- almost certainly Amazon ---- will establish a huge distribution center in Patterson that would employ at least 1,500 workers.

Jan 31, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Solons earn voters' scorn once again

By DAN WALTERS

Last Tuesday, the Public Policy Institute of California issued a new poll that found, among other things, just 17 percent of the state's voters like the Legislature's performance.

Jan 30, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Early test for judicial funds battle

By DAN WALTERS

As the Legislature reconvened this month, California's judges resumed their civil war over money and power.

Jan 27, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown budget leans on school funding ploys

By DAN WALTERS

The state budget contains hundreds of specific provisions but none is bigger, more complicated, more politicized, more emotional ---- or more important ---- than the 30 or so billion dollars that it spends on K-12 education.

Jan 26, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: State unions in denial on pension costs

By DAN WALTERS

Whenever someone suggests that California's public employee pension systems need reform, civil service unions react dismissively, often with attacks on the credentials or even the morals of critics.

Jan 25, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown still believes reform policy will work

By DAN WALTERS

Jerry Brown evidently does not want to join the nascent movement to overhaul ---- perhaps radically ---- California's dysfunctional political structure.

Jan 24, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Tax battles to come before November

By DAN WALTERS

California's big tax battle will be waged next fall as voters decide the fate of Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed hike in sales and income taxes and perhaps one or two competing tax increases.

Jan 23, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Brown speech, well, vintage Brown

By DAN WALTERS

Jerry Brown devoted much of Wednesday's State of the State speech to dissing "declinists" who portray California as failing because they don't understand that "California is turbulent, less predictable and, well, different."

Jan 20, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Fallen Glass deserves second chance

By DAN WALTERS

"In re Glass on Admission" is certainly not the most important case ever to be decided by the California Supreme Court.

Jan 19, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Redevelopment keeps faint pulse

By DAN WALTERS

Some of the California legislators who voted last year to abolish redevelopment agencies and shift their money into schools and other local governments appear to be having executioner's remorse ---- creating uncertainty about redevelopment's future, if any.

Jan 19, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

WALTERS: Big city mayors absorb power

By DAN WALTERS

The mayors of California's larger cities have enjoyed ---- or at least experienced ---- marked increases in their authority in recent decades.

Jan 18, 2012 | 5:00 am | Loading…

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