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Shires Examines California State Budget Crisis

With the state of California facing a $42 billion deficit, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency. Michael Shires, associate professor of public policy, will provide an overview of California's unprecedented cash crisis and then turn to the state's options for both immediate and long-term responses from 12:10 to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19 in room 175 of the School of Public Policy on the Malibu campus.

Shires presentation will examine the political and economic implications of the budget crisis in conjunction with the national economic disaster and provide insight into both what is likely to happen and what should happen to provide long-term relief.

The presentation is particularly timely as California lawmakers worked into early Wednesday morning, Feb. 18, but couldn't pass a budget to avoid the possibility of laying off 10,000 more state workers.

"What we're dealing with here is a failure of leadership and public trust," says Shires. "As the federal economy melts down and the state budget is pushed further into deficit, the solutions sought by lawmakers will reach into all of our pockets. More than that, this is the latest chapter in the ongoing failure of leadership in the state government. I know that our students a the School of Public Policy are very interested in trying to fix that."

Shires' primary areas of teaching and research include state, regional, and local policy; technology and democracy; higher education policy; strategic, political, and organizational issues in public policy; and quantitative analysis. He previously was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and a doctoral fellow at RAND's Graduate School of Policy Studies, concentrating on domestic education policy, California fiscal policy, and international trade policy.

All are welcome to attend this free lecture. For more information, visit the School of Public Policy Web site.