The new chart from Business Insider, an update of Calculated Risk's scariest jobs chart ever, doesn't really need additional commentary:

When lawmakers and the governor enacted the current state budget on Oct. 8, it was balanced as required under law. Thirty-three days later the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected the deficit will climb to $25.4 billion by June 30, 2012. Adding insult to injury, the LAO estimate included a $6.1 billion projected shortfall in the current fiscal year.

In an attempt to address the most recent iteration of the budget crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called the Legislature into special session immediately after the new crop of legislators is sworn in on Dec. 6 at noon, less than one month before Schwarzenegger leaves office.

The Governor plans to introduce his own proposal to close the current-year deficit, which will be based on the Department of Finance's estimate of the shortfall, spokesman Aaron McLear said. The plan, which will not include tax increases, will likely rely on steeper spending cuts proposed by Schwarzenegger earlier this year.

Of course the budget isn't the only item on Schwarzenegger's special session agenda. The Governor has also asked lawmakers to reconsider a measure which would ban plastic bags in California.

Former Orange County Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who was termed out this year, said Schwarzenegger was right to call a special session given these shortfalls in the budget, but he's doesn't think legislative Democrats will have any incentive to negotiate with Schwarzenegger when Jerry Brown is about to take office.

Republican State Sen. Bob Huff of Diamond Bar, whose district also includes a piece of Orange County, echoed DeVore's comments, saying the special session only will be fruitful if Brown is involved. If not, nothing will happen.

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown is already starting his own work on the budget having called for a meeting of state lawmakers and finance officials in Sacramento to discuss the deficit just two days after the commencement of Schwarzenegger's special session.

So at the same time Schwarzenegger will be trying to convince lawmakers to work with him on the budget, Brown will be laying out his ideas for the future. Legislators are likely to pay more attention to Brown who will be around for the next four years rather than the departing Schwarzenegger.

So while the average Californian continues to confront the daily realities of a failing economy, the Brown 'budget summit' provides legislative democrats even less incentive to work with Schwarzenegger to remedy California's immediate fiscal disaster.

President Obama’s 18 member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (commission) voted 11-7 in support of the commission’s official report. That's three votes short of the 14-vote mark needed to spur quick congressional action on its austere spending blueprint.

The controversial DREAM Act, a fixture in the immigration debate since 2001, would give undocumented students the chance to become citizens.

Arguing that the committee is unnecessary and that its eradication would slash government waste, Republican leadership will pull the plug on Pelosi's Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"The global warming committee doesn't need to be a separate committee," Boehner told reporters. "We believe the Science Committee is more than capable of handling this issue, and in the process we'll save several million dollars."

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was created by soon-to-be-former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was designed to provide members of Congress with a prominent forum for discussion on developing climate-change science and supply information about the global race for clean-energy technology.

Climate change matters are overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as the Natural Resources Committee.

Bloomberg reported:
Republicans will eliminate the House committee created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to highlight the threat of climate change, Representative James Sensenbrenner, the top Republican on the panel, said today.

In one of her first acts as speaker in 2007, Pelosi, a California Democrat, created the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to draw attention to climate-change science and showcase how a cap on carbon dioxide needn’t be a threat to economic growth.

Republicans, who won control of the House in the Nov. 2 election, have opposed legislative efforts to regulate carbon emissions as a tax on energy. When the panel convened today, Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said that the hearing “will be the last of the select committee.”

Sensenbrenner had advocated extending the panel as a forum to scrutinize Obama administration actions. In an opinion column on Nov. 8 in the Washington newspaper Roll Call, he wrote that the committee was “more qualified than any other” to challenge Obama environmental initiatives that he said may threaten the economy. He acknowledged that other Republicans thought the panel should be eliminated to save money.

“We are going to get rid of waste and duplication in terms of how we run the Congress,” House Republican Leader John Boehner, who is slated to become speaker in January, told reporters today. “We believe the Science Committee is more than capable of handling this issue and in the process save several million dollars.”

Your taxpayer dollars at work… bailing out foreign banks.
Gone is the "highest and best use" analysis for taxpayer funds. The Fed spent $350 billion bailing out foreign banks during the financial meltdown. Zero Hedge reported, via Free Republic:

One may be forgiven to believe that via its FX liquidity swap lines the Fed only bailed out foreign Central Banks, which in turn took the money and funded their own banks. It turns out that is only half the story: we now know the Fed also acted in a secondary bail out capacity, providing over $350 billion in short term funding exclusively to 35 foreign banks, of which the biggest beneficiaries were UBS, Dexia and BNP. Since the funding provided was in the form of ultra-short maturity commercial paper it was essentially equivalent to cash funding. In other words, between October 27, 2008 and August 6, 2009, the Fed spent $350 billion in taxpayer funds to save 35 foreign banks.

It was only a few short months ago that Californians narrowly escaped a plastic bag tax & ban proposal.

In the waning hours of California's 2009-2010 legislative session lawmakers debated AB 1998, a legislative proposal attempting to ban all single-use plastic bags from grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience and liquor stores by 2013.

The bill, authored by Assemblywoman Brownley (D-Los Angeles), would have additionally authorized stores to charge 5 cents per bag - or higher - for paper bags if consumers do not bring in their own reusable bags.

Despite a firm democratic majority in the State Senate, the bag ban failed passage.

Now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging lawmakers to reconsider the measure asking Legislators to bring it back during the special session which starts Dec 6. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Schwarzenegger said at a news conference at the Capitol that the measure might fare better in the current, post-election political climate.