President Obama's cabinet

What happened to the change President Obama said was going to happen in this country during the primary & general elections. So far what President Obama has done is pick people from the Beltway or people who use to be in the Clinton Adminstration. I am not saying that these people are not qualified. However, is President Obama telling the American people that he can't find any qualified people to fill his cabinet positions from outside the Beltway, who haven't worked in any previous presidential administrations, where are the qualified Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, etc. In additions, President Obama said he'd appoint Republicans, where are the Republicans? I know there aren't that many qualified Republicans. However, there's Kay Bailey Hutchinson & Gov. Pawlenty & Former Gov. Romney to name a few.

California's elected officials urged to pare their own pay

I couldn't have stated this any better than Lynne Larsen. I'm an office technician & my salary is is $39,000 per year. My take home pay would drop $163.20 per month. This is not a nice dinner and a high-end cigar for the folks under the dome because their dinners & cigars are paid for, it's called per diem. $163.20 is my gas, electric, water & telephone bills. I guess I'm suppose to tell Pacific Gas & Electric, A.T & T. & the San Francisco Water Dept. to turn off my gas & electric, water & telephone since I won't be able to pay them. California's legislators are like AIG, General Motors, Ford & Chrysler's executives. They want us taxpayers to pay for their excessive compensation while they stay at 5 star hotels such as the Ritz Carlton, fly around in private corporate jets & eat in posh restaurants that the rest of us can only dream of. I've never flown on a private jet, the closes I've gotten to a private jet was using frequent flyer miles to fly in the business class of a commercial airplane.

Big 3 Automaker bailout

The new proposal by both Democrats & Republicans in Congress for the government to get a chance to share in future profits by the auto companies, require them to limit executives' pay packages & prohibit use of the funds for lobbying or paying shareholders dividends is worse than the original plan. 1. Nothing will improve as long as the management from the CEO on down stays at the Big 3. 2. If we taxpayers give the Big 3 $25 Billion as an investment, what guarantee is there that they'll implement their plan?-they could return in 3 months to 1 year & say they couldn't implement any of their proposals in the plan due to circumstances beyond their control, the $25 Billion is gone & we need more money. Since we the taxpayers will have already invested $25 Billion & won't want to lose that money, we'll give more money. We might as well turn on the faucet & let the water continue to go down the drain.

Requiring them to limit executives pay packages should have been in the first $25 Billion bailout. Are there going to be monetary penalties if they don't comply?

Prohibit use of the funds for paying shareholders dividends. This also should have been a requirement in the first $25 Billion bailout because shareholders would revolt if they didn't get their dividends, some of our seniors use these dividends to supplement their living expenses-if it was I guarantee you the shareholders would have voted these executives out of office due to their incompetence.

Schwarzenegger calls for federal aid

Bond spending and regular operations spending out of the general fund is different. With bond spending the State ends up spending more than we have because even though we've spent the borrowed funds, we're still paying off the interest. For ex. In the mid 80's, Californians approved a transportation bond. According to Cal/Trans, we've spent the borrowed funds. However, we just finished paying the interest. The econcomical way to improve California's infrastructure including water is for the legislature to pass legislation & the Governor sign the legislation-this saves millions in interest payments.

Editorial: Schwarzenegger: 'I am open to discussing anything'

What about cutting your staff Governor Schwarzenegger? You haven't said anything about that. If everyone is suppose to sacrifice a little bit, what about you?

Once again, help for wartime vets

It's great that Americans are supporting the troops. The problem is that Americans don't want to pay to make the returning troops whole again physically & mentally, re-educate, retrain & house them. It's easy to say support the troops. In otherwords, actions speak louder than words, put your money where your mouth is.

Schwarzenegger pushes for November budget solution

The severity of the situation will not force lawmakers to respond, the situation was severe back in May-September & the lawmakers didn't respond, they're just as entrenched today as they were back then. Lawmakers don't care if the Governor looks at their name favorably down the line. The termed out lawmakers will run for another elected office, they all do. State workers taking a monthly unpaid day of leave through June 2010 "under the auspices of everyone gets a little haircut" is not getting a little haircut. A little haircut cost $25-$30. A monthly unpaid day of leave is a 5% pay cut. For me, a state worker, that's $163.20 pay cut per month. This is $163.20 per month less in discretionary spending. This means I'll have $163.20 less per month to purchase big ticket items such as kitchen appliances, remodeling my home, etc. This means less sales tax revenue going into the General Fund.

John McCain

In John McCain's concession speech, he said "I don't know what more I could have done to win the election". Here are my suggestions:

1. Properly vet your choice for your Vice Presidential running mate. Do not choose someone who is not qualified to be Vice President let alone President & try to pretend to the American people that your choice is qualified. It didn't work, enough people were convinced that Sarah Palin was qualified to give a speech the McCain campaign advisors prepared for her at the convention. However, when she gave interviews, everyone knew she wasn't qualified-telling Katie Couric "I'll check & bring it to ya" or not remembering the July, 2008 Supreme Court ruling reducing Exxon's monetary award to Alaska for the Exxon Valdez accident.

2. Before choosing your campaign advisors, throughly investigate them. Don't hire campaign advisors who sent the value of their company's stock from $150 per share to $25 per share-Carly Florina.

3. When an undecided independent voter sends an e-mail regarding a concern they have, respond to the e-mail. I sent John McCain an e-mail the first week of September asking how his healthcare plan would benefit me. To date, I have not received a response. This shows that McCain does not care about the American people-caring about people who have 7-12 homes isn't caring for the American people. People who have 7-12 homes don't need help.

California's budget

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger truly wants to reduce government spending, he can start by reducing the number of supervisors/managers in all the government agencies. Some agencies have 1 supervisor supervising 1-3 employees. Don't let state agencies move from state owned buildings to privately owned buildings, thereby incurring moving cost, cost overruns & rent that is 2-3 times higher than the rent at state owned buildings. In addition, if the privately owned building isn't computer ready & doesn't meet the Americans With Disabilities Act, the State incurs cost to bring the building into compliance.