Grapes ready to be harvested in a Wine Country vineyard. (Photo: Lukasz Szwaj, via Shutterstock)Wine from California vintners will now get equal treatment to sit atop Canadian store shelves under the terms of the recently renegotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The CalPERS' governing board during a meeting several years ago at the pension fund's headquarters. (Photo: CalPERS board)California pension funds take a bigger share of tax revenue than the national state average, a research website shows. Why the growing costs are outpacing the norm is not completely clear. A prime suspect for some would be overly generous pensions, particularly what critics say is an “unsustainable” increase for police and firefighters widely adopted to match a big increase given the Highway Patrol by SB 400 in 1999.
The state Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: AMadScientist, via Wikimedia)FIELD POLL: Slightly more voters believe California is generally on the wrong track (46%) than say it is moving in the right direction (41%). In addition, more voters disapprove (47%) than approve (35%) of the job performance of the state legislature. Opinions about both matters are directly related to the party registration of voters. Democrats offer a much more optimistic assessment of the direction of the state and hold more positive views of the job the state legislature is doing than Republicans.
The governor, who has described himself as tight with a buck, set out to prove it before the UC Regents when he said they needed to bite into a “reality sandwich” if they were thinking of getting more than a 5 percent hike in state funds. The increase Brown granted in this year’s budget was relatively modest but desperately needed to fill some gaps for UC.