Guest: Joe Mathews

Topic: State budget plan

Listen to Interview on July 28, 2009

Web Site: Joemathews.com

Joe Mathews joins us to discuss the cost of the new California budget.  Does the budget really shut out the special interest groups? Is the budget a revenue shortfall?  The political party leaders are no longer in control of the members of the their party.  Should Prop 13 be done away with?  Should we do away with the 2/3 majority to inact new taxes?

Joe Mathews, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation is a fourth-generation Californian, writes about his home state and its politics, media, labor, and real estate. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy (PublicAffairs, 2006), an account of Governor Schwarzenegger’s first term and his use of ballot measures as governing tools. Before joining New America, he was a reporter for eight years at the Los Angeles Times