President Obama has given several very important policy speeches during this month of September 2009. In general transcripts of President Obama’s speeches are easily found on the White House Speeches and Remarks site. A few of the September 2009 speeches are highlighted here:
The Library’s exhibit “125 Years of Discovery: The FDLP at Cal” celebrating UCB’s 125th anniversary of being a Federal Depository Library (see original blog posting for more details) is scheduled to close in late September. If you have not yet visited this exhibit, we encourage you to do so before it closes. The exhibit is located in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery, just inside the North entrance of the Doe Library. The exhibit website will remain active:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/doemoff/govinfo/federal/fdlpexhibit/
The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has issued the report: July 2009 Budget Package that summarizes the budget actions of the state Legislature and the Governor. The Legislature passed amendments to the 2009-10 Budget Bill on July 24, 2009. The Governor signed the budget package on July 28, 2009 and in doing so vetoed $489 million in General Fund appropriations. The new budget authorizes total General Fund spending of $84.6 billion and leaves an estimated reserve of $500 million at the end of FY 2009-10. Tables in the report of interest:
Expenditure-Related Budget Reductions in areas: K-14 education, higher education, local government, social services, transportation, health, employee compensation, criminal justice, and other; also includes increases in revenues/transfers to general fund, and increases in borrowing
2008-09 and 2009-10 Proposition 98 Funding comparisons
Another report, this one from the California Budget Project, Governor Signs Budget Revisions, also offers an analysis of the new budget. It notes that the majority of the Governor’s vetoes cut ($394 million) from health and human services programs, including the Child Welfare Services Program, the Health Family Programs, and the Regional Center services for developmentally disabled children. This publication provides a summary of the key provisions of the budget and the Governor’s line-item vetoes.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) released on May 4, 2009, State Measures to Balance FY 2010 Budgets, a report that in a series of tables documents the measures (proposed and enacted) that states are taking to close budget gaps. These measures include actions to cut budgets and also generate new revenues. Budget areas or topics include: Criminal Justice, Education, Employee Actions (for example furloughs and layoffs), and Other Actions (purchase freezes, delayed capital projects, agency consolidation, etc.).
UC Berkeley has recently acquired full-text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789-1969) through LexisNexis Congressional. The Serial Set contains the legislative history of United States, and also includes many historic agency annual reports, House and Senate Reports, and many other official government documents (for a more complete summary of what is contained in the Serial Set, click here). Prior to this acquisition, citations to the Serial Set found in LexisNexis Congressional had to be searched in the Readex United States Congressional Serial Set database. With this purchase, you can now search LexisNexis Congressional for all your congressional research needs. Off-campus access to LexisNexis Congressional is restricted to current UCB student, faculty and staff, though anyone in the Library may access the database.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has just released their report on the stimulus package: 2009-10 Budget Analysis Series: Federal Economic Stimulus Package - Fiscal Effect on California. Of the total stimulus package of $787 billion nationwide, it is estimated that California will receive over $31 billion that can be used to overcome budget shortfalls and to supplement state spending. The California budget, 2009-10, specifies that at least $10 billion was necessary to prevent state budget reductions of nearly $1billion and revenue increases of about $1.8 billion. Based on this budget it is estimated that $8 billion would be available and that there may be additional federal education dollars to provide relief. The LAO report includes key issues to consider regarding these federal funds and ways to maximize their benefit.
As part if the School Finance Facts series, the California Budget Project published, February 2009, this very useful 5 page guide on school finances. The report examines school district revenues and also recent proposals for reform. Includes charts and graphs.
The Library has just subscribed to LexisNexis Statistical Datasets. The database provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Datasets allows you to customize the data by selecting subjects, variable(s) of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Datasets also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news, and when you download or print, you are given citation information from where the data originated. Anyone may access LexisNexis Statistical Datasets from the public computers in the Library, however, off-campus access to is restricted to current UCB faculty, staff and students through the proxy server or VPN.
The Inter-American Development Bank offers on its website various links to ’statistics and tools’ and one such tool is the Databank on Indigenous Legislation. The databank has three sections which in different ways make available legal texts, legislation at various levels and also case law. The National Legislation by Country section contains legal rules, text from constitutions, laws and case law. The section, National Legislation by Theme offers 20 themes such as cultural diversity, territories, health, environment, and indigenous women and within the themes lists legal rules in constitutions, laws and legislation. The third section, International Legislation includes the text of international conventions such as the American Convention on Human Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, also includes international case law by country, and Inter-American Court of Justice rulings.
