Budget

President Obama will ask Congress for $27 billion for border and transportation security in the next budget year, fulfilling a promise to the Mexican government to battle the southbound flow of illegal weapons and setting the stage for immigration reform by first addressing enforcement, administration officials said Tuesday. The spending, an 8% increase over this year's, will enable the administration to hire more agents and enhance security at air- and seaports.

Irene Steinlage has trouble walking, getting dressed, making her bed, taking a bath. She has stayed in her Folsom home with the help of a health aide, one that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state can no longer afford. The governor's plan to take away such care is meant to save money. But it could end up costing California more by forcing the 85-year-old, who has Parkinson's, osteoporosis and other ailments -- and thousands like her -- into nursing homes.

In 1975, New York City was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and threatening to bring down the entire state. No state had gone bankrupt, but President Ford wanted to make New York an example to the rest of the country. His spokesman compared the city to "a wayward daughter hooked on heroin. You don't give her $100 a day to support her habit." That spring, Felix Rohatyn, an investment banker, was called upon to advise Gov. Hugh Carey on New York's finances.

I don't know if this is an old adage or a new one I've coined based on years of depressing observations, but it seems that California's political leaders mostly operate according to the following principle: The best way to avoid taking action on something is to call for "action." The aftermath of the May 19 special election affords us an especially good look at this principle in, well, action.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved nearly $1.6 billion in cuts over the next three years that will result in layoffs and increased class sizes and could one day mean the elimination of such key programs as all-day kindergarten and summer school.

Because of the state's budget uncertainty, the Los Angeles school board agreed Tuesday to potentially lay off up to 2,300 teachers if no other options become available this year. The Los Angeles Unified School District faces up to a $250-million shortfall, and the move could shave about $50 million from that figure. But Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, in his first board meeting as head of the district, said he hoped not to send the notices. "This is strictly a place-holder," he said.

There are million-dollar mansions in foreclosure, layoffs on Rodeo Drive. And reservations are no longer a must at all but the most exclusive restaurants. As recently as the summer, many wealthy Southern California enclaves appeared beyond the reach of the worst recession in decades. But rich cities, it turns out, aren't always so different from the rest.

Nearly three months after he signed off on a plan to eliminate a $530-million shortfall, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa still has not won enough concessions from city workers to avert deep cutbacks that could hit L.A.'s police hardest. The City Council left last week for a summer recess even though solutions to the budget crisis threaten to unravel. Contract talks with public safety employees have grown acrimonious, with Villaraigosa denouncing a publicity campaign by the firefighters' union against more cuts.

Protests, rallies and scattered class cancellations roiled University of California campuses across the state Thursday, on the first day of the fall quarter for many students. But predictions by some organizers that the 10 campuses could be shut down by demonstrations against fee increases and pay cuts did not materialize. The size and intensity of the protests and related activities varied significantly across the UC system. An estimated 5,000 people demonstrated at UC Berkeley, the oldest campus; just 20 or so took part at UC Merced, the newest.

Staff shortages are forcing tens of thousands of state workers employed at prisons and other around-the-clock institutions to report to work on their furlough days -- and the state is paying them with what amount to IOUs that will be costly to taxpayers, according to a Senate report to be released today. In the long run, the state will save far less than the $1.7-billion touted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he ordered state workers furloughed three days a month, the report concludes.