Many in this nation are growing increasingly concerned about the national debt and foreign policy of the United States.  As a result, CAIVN would like to share a portion of Marcy Winograd's recent press release in order to stimulate debate and discussion.  Here is the abridged version:

Though he was ridiculed in the media (for no other reason than his boring demeanor), Al Gore was on to something with his 2000 Presidential campaign promise to put Social Security money in a "lock box" where politicians couldn't touch or spend it. The current system is a pay-as-you-go system where people who are paying into the program now are funding the retirements of people who are retired now, with the expectation that future generations of workers will fund the retirements of today's labor force.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2010-2011 budget proposes the virtual elimination of critical in-home services to California’s poor and disabled seniors.  The targeted program is known as the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), a program that has provided in-home domestic and personal care services to elderly, disabled, and poor Americans who cannot safely live and take care of themselves without assistance for six decades.  The goal of IHSS was, and still is, to provide care while allowing our nation’s most vulnerable people to remain in their homes as opposed to living in an inst

The drug trade and its accompanying violence continues to be a problem south of the border.  Approximately 90% of the cocaine reaching U.S.

It’s been a successful week for supporters of cannabis taxation: the recent news of strong support for an initiative (09-0024, or the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010) to tax and regulate marijuana has spread quickly.

You won’t believe this until you see it.  In a stunning admission, former Governor of Kentucky and current State Senator Julian Carroll admitted, “I could care less what want…we operate democracy in this country with a two-party system.”  These comments were expressed following an interview with independent activist Michael Lewis, where the Senator suggested that if independents don’t like the way the political system is run, they should “leave the country”, and by pushing for open primaries, independents were trying to “destroy the two-party system.”

The New York Times recently cited rancorous partisanship as one of the chief causes of America's skyrocketing national debt.  Running $1.4 trillion budget deficits and having increased the debt ceiling to approximately $14 trillion, our nation is headed toward certain fiscal disaster unless a major policy shift is enacted.  And while Republicans and Democrats continue to point fingers at one another, the debt spirals out of control.

Stung by public disapproval and worries over the speed of economic recovery, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers have introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation they claim will add or preserve as much as 140,000 jobs.  In December, there were 14.1 million non-farm jobs in California, according to the state Employment Development Department.

The 1969 oil spill off of Santa Barbara that killed nearly 4,000 birds and ruined some of the state’s finest beaches is about to take one more victim:  the offshore drilling proposal by the Plains Exploration and Production Company (also known as PXP). 

Having faced some of the most agonizing budget decisions a State can make since the fairly mundane 2008 election, this November is the first time that Californians will have the opportunity to confront the wide array of proposed remedies and decide for themselves which of those remedies bears merit. This is a highly interesting moment, but also a highly dangerous one, for with it, as always, comes the potential for radical figures to overhaul key components of the Californian economy in arguably overambitious plans which throw out the baby with the bathwater.