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MEDIA ADVISORY:
San Francisco State experts on California's budget crisis

#113

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS
Ted DeAdwyler
SFSU Office of Public Affairs
(415) 338-1665
pubcom@sfsu.edu

 

Press Release published by the Office of Public Affairs

 


SAN FRANCISCO, June 20, 2003…Several San Francisco State University faculty experts are available to offer perspective as the California State Legislature wrestles with a proposed state budget and a projected $38 billion shortfall. SFSU's scholars can assist the media in providing analysis of the politics, economics and the history behind the state budget crisis. To contact experts in other areas, please call the SFSU Office of Public Affairs at (415) 338-1665.

Gerard Heather, professor of political science and an authority on political theory, is a close observer of California state politics. Heather can be reached at (415) 584-1387 or at gh@sfsu.edu
Heather said that only solution to passing a state budget is a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, which is more likely to happen later rather than sooner. He pointed out the state budget needs to pass with a two-thirds vote so both parties need votes from the other side. "Democrats will have to accept some spending cuts and Republicans will have to support measures to increase revenue. Once the budget looms larger in the public eye, it will be much easier politically for each side to compromise," Heather said.

Philip Dreyfus, assistant professor of history and an authority on the state's labor history, is an expert on California's history. Dreyfus can be reached at (415) 338-1625 or at pdreyfus@sfsu.edu
The state's budget has seen its ups and downs in recent years, Dreyfus said. But he said there seems to be a deeper, structural issue continually plaguing the budget. "There is the revenue problem, which started with attacks on taxes under Gov. Ronald Reagan but which has gotten much, much worse since passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. Then you have all of the many constituencies competing for those tax dollars," Dreyfus said.

Richard McCline, co-director of the Ohrenschall Center for Entrepreneurship at SFSU's College of Business and associate professor of management, can be reached at (510) 337-1092 (home) or at drmccline@msn.com.
" Bad times primarily just change the nature of the opportunities for entrepreneurs," said McCline, also chairman of the board for the East Bay Black Chamber of Commerce. "Entrepreneurs tend to thrive in times of chaos, change and confusion because our economic justification is that we use innovative behavior to bring order to a chaotic marketplace.”

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