Spending

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Re "'Tax the rich' is not reform," Column, May 21 George Skelton is right: "The rich" have been paying the lion's share of California taxes for years. Too many citizens have no tax obligations at all, and it's fine with them for someone else to pay down our deficit. The tax base should include everyone. But Skelton doesn't mention that California already has the highest sales tax rate and one of the highest personal income tax rates in the nation. Overspending cannot be overcome by further taxing the remaining rich (employers)

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

The battle for a San Bernardino County congressional seat has become a magnet for outside "super PAC" dollars. The June 5 primary election that pits Republican Rep. Gary G. Miller of Diamond Bar against Republican state Sen. Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga has received close to $1 million in outside money, the most of any congressional race in the nation. By far, the greatest beneficiary has been Miller, who was elected to Congress in 1998 after making a fortune in home building.

So how many omega-3 fatty acids are enough — and how should you get them? That likely depends on your age and your specific health concerns. The United States does not yet have guidelines for DHA or EPA, and consensus among nutrition experts is elusive. But specialty groups, some governmental agencies and individual experts have started to take a stand. For healthy adults without major medical issues, the European Food Safety Agency recommends a daily dose of 250 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA, while the National Heart Foundation of Australia suggests 500 milligrams.

The federal government ran up a budget deficit of nearly $780 billion in the first half of the fiscal year amid more spending on TARP, Social Security, Medicare and more, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the shortfall is actually $53 billion less than it was in the same period last year. From Oct. 1, 2011, through March 30, 2012, the government pulled in $29 billion more in corporate income taxes -- a 53% increase -- due to businesses making higher payments and getting smaller refunds.

In a bellwether of a recovering economy, advertisers are spending more money at the movies. Cinema advertising — the dollars that advertisers spent to sell their products in theaters — rose nearly 13% to $658.3 million in 2010, from $584.1 million in 2009, according to a report released Monday by the Cinema Advertising Council, a trade group that represents movie ad sellers. Sales rose across the board, with jumps in local, regional and national advertising sales. It marks the eighth consecutive year that advertising spending in theaters has increased, the council said, and reflects an improved economic climate that has spurred advertisers to spend more money.

WASHINGTON -- The General Services Administration official who was the first to bring attention to excessive spending taking place at a 2010 conference in Las Vegas testified Tuesday to support the government's investigation and subsequent dealings with the agency. Deputy Commissioner Susan Brita told those attending Tuesday's House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee hearing that "I share your anger and disappointment in GSA's conduct. " Brita initially informed Robert Peck, the former commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, of her concerns about the need for the conference, and has since aided in Inspector General Brian Miller's examination of the GSA. Peck was one of two deputies fired from the GSA following the resignation of the agency's administrator, Martha Johnson.

House Republicans on Wednesday criticized spending by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose budget will increase by 26% in 2013 to $448 million, saying lawmakers have no say over how the agency doles out the money. “If they spend $100 million on paper clips, we can't even say, 'Wait a minute, you can't do that.' Next year we're going to cut their budget,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.). “We have absolutely no control.” The committee summoned the agency's newly installed director, Richard Cordray, to a hearing on the agency's spending plans for 2013 and criticized some of the salaries it has been paying and, more broadly, what they said was a lack of detail on its budget.

Reporting from Sacramento GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman was spending more each day on her campaign by early summer than her Democratic rival, Jerry Brown, had spent all year, according to disclosure statements filed with the state Monday. The reports, which cover the candidates' expenditures in the five-week period ending June 30, show that Whitman spent $19.7 million in that short span, or $531,378 per day — most of it after the June 8 primary election. Brown, who had no major opposition in the primary, has spent $377,000 since the beginning of the year.

The Los Angeles City Council passed a $7.2-billion budget Monday, voting to cut 400 unfilled city staff positions but putting off difficult decisions on layoffs, park funding and Fire Department resources. On a 15-0 vote, council members agreed to wait until January to determine whether layoffs are necessary, and which positions could be eliminated, saying that more study is needed. They took that step despite a warning from the city's top budget official that some of the revenue being used to balance spending isn't a sure thing.

WASHINGTON - Wading into the gay marriage debate, the Republican-led House tacked a provision banning same-sex marriages at military chapels onto a sweeping defense bill that is now headed to the Senate. Despite the high-octane public discussion over gay marriage that has intensified since President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriages, the issue has been one that Capitol Hill has largely sought to avoid. But the GOP majority led Congress into the issue by adding the same-sex marriage prohibitions to the defense bill.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. -- Mitt Romney rounded out a week focused on what he views as overspending by the federal government with a critique of President Obama's stimulus program during a speech in front of what opponents call New Hampshire's "bridge to nowhere. " Romney has argued throughout the campaign that Obama's $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a waste of money that did little to jumpstart the economy -- and he has charged that the federal government has inflated the job numbers associated with various projects.

Re "Rail requires high-speed spending," May 14 Your article on the feasibility of mounting a construction effort that could put $3.5 million of work in place each day was unduly negative. I worked on the Alameda Corridor and on the Utah I-15 programs, which showed the feasibility of delivering large civil works projects on an aggressive schedule. While they did not reach the peak volume planned for California's rail project, we have seen this volume in L.A. during the peak years of rail construction in the early 1990s.

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Americans plan to travel in slightly higher numbers this summer, according to surveys, starting with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. But many will hold the line on spending for items such as hotel stays and entertainment because of high fuel costs and rising airfares. An annual survey by the American Automobile Assn. released Tuesday predicted that 34.8 million Americans will travel by all modes at least 50 miles from home during the holiday weekend, a 1.2% increase over last year.

A record number of foreign visitors helped boost overall tourism spending in the U.S. last year 8.1% to $1.2 trillion, the Commerce Department said. Last year's 62.3 million foreign visitors marked an increase of 4% from the previous year. Foreign tourists spent a record $153 billion here, much of it in the last three months of the year, according to new Commerce data Wednesday. American travelers account for the vast majority of tourism spending in the country. But Commerce Secretary John Bryson touted the increase in foreign visitors, which he said makes travel and tourism the nation's top service export.

After a report exposed lavish spending by the General Services Administration at a four-day conference in Las Vegas, a member of Congress says he will hold a hearing to probe the agency's stewardship of taxpayer money. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the public buildings subpanel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he would lead a hearing "to hold GSA accountable for taxpayer waste and inefficiency," once Congress returns from recess April 16. An inspector general's report detailed $822,000 in expenses for the 2010 conference in Nevada, including a $100-plus-per-person reception and $6,325 for commemorative coins to commend GSA employees' work on the stimulus package.

TAMPA, FLA. -- As he continued his effort to turn the public's attention to the rise in federal spending, Mitt Romney acknowledged Wednesday that President George W. Bush presided over the accumulation of $4 trillion in debt, but faulted President Obama for failing to do enough to stem the growth in spending. Romney noted Obama was a harsh critic of Bush's spending policies during the 2008 campaign, calling his record on debt "irresponsible. " But without delving into the complexities of the economic collapse that Obama faced after taking office, Romney contended the president did not fulfill a promise to cut the debt in half: "Instead he doubled it, all right, he doubled it," the former Massachusetts governor said.  "It's true you can't blame one party or the other for all the debts this country has, because both parties in my opinion have spent too much and borrowed too much when they were in power," Romney told a crowd of several hundred people who cheered enthusiastically throughout his speech.