Jacobin Magazine: on Budget & Economy

Kamala Harris: Prosecuted fewer foreclosure fraud cases than smaller states

Her Mortgage Fraud Strike Force opened in 2011, employing twenty-five lawyers and investigators with a budget of more than $2 million to go after foreclosure fraud. The strike force managed to prosecute just ten cases in three years, an East Bay Express investigation in 2014 found. It had filed fewer lawsuits than attorneys general in smaller states with fewer victims, and even fewer than some county district attorneys. Yet California led the country in terms of such scam operations.

Tim Walz: Bipartisan compromise $48B budget to address 2017 crises

Walz secured a two-year, $48 billion budget deal precisely how he said he would: by getting everyone to compromise. Walz gave up on the ten-cent-a-gallon gas tax hike he had campaigned on to pay for transportation improvements, which Republicans had bitterly opposed. Meanwhile, Republicans agreed to keep in place (albeit at a slightly lower rate) what they derided as the "sick tax"--a levy on health care providers that funded the state's Medicaid program and MinnesotaCare, its health insurance program for the working poor.