Understanding Government

More uncertainty is emerging about California’s planned $43 billion bullet train system, after a state report recommended a serious shakeup in the management and spending on the joint federal and state project.

As Dan Weikel of the Los Angeles Times reports, California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office released a 28-page report raising serious doubts about both the decisions being made and the decision-makers themselves. The report urges that management of the entire project be stripped from its appointed board — the California High Speed Rail Authority — and turned over to the state Department of Transportation, more commonly known as Caltrans. (more…)

After years of admonishment about wasting water, residents of perennially dry California are watching billions of gallons of the life giving liquid roll out to sea as a prodigious rainy season draws to a close.

With irrigation districts, water districts and enviros engaged in battles spreading out across the decades, Matt Weiser 0f the Sacramento Bee wades into the battle with a primer on efforts to boost water supplies in California and the substantial hurdles these projects must clear. (more…)

Derrion Albert 1993-2009

NPR ran a series all last week examining deadly violence among Chicago Public Schools students, a topic I covered extensively in July 2009. Now, as in 2009, just a fraction of CPS students, mostly young black males, are vulnerable to deadly violence. The problem, though,  became even more sensationalized following the videotaped beating and subsequent death of Derrion Albert in September 2009.

The city of Chicago is clearly doing a lot to deal with the violence. But it’s questionable if they’re choosing the smartest policies — or receiving any help from Washington. (more…)

The federal government has a projected $10.4 trillion deficit over the next ten years. But most states also run long-term deficits, a problem partly caused by money states borrowed from Washington to pay unemployment benefits. Barack Obama’s proposed 2012 budget belatedly addresses state and federal government’s failure to handle a prolonged period of high unemployment.

Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains how Wisconsin came to borrow $1.56 billion from the federal government. (more…)

In its final weeks, the Richard M. Daley administration used federal stimulus funds to bolster Daley’s legacy as a green mayor and perhaps make the city’s very expensive Streets & Sanitation system a bit more efficient. The city will spend $2.2 million on solar-powered trash compactors from Massachusetts-based Big Belly Solar, reports Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times. Four hundred compactors will be located downtown and each will automatically sense when it is full and trigger a notification to the city. Philadelphia installed similar solar trash compactors and saved $900,000 in refuse removal costs in the plan’s first year.