-- Budget hearings and deliberations will be broadcast on the Web and, when possible, on television. Budget information will be posted on the Internet.

• -- Public hearings will be held statewide so that "every-day Californians have the opportunity to look us in the eye and tell us how our budget proposals will affect their lives."

Disability rights advocates have scored another victory – and thwarted another budget cut – with a federal court injunction this week that blocks tightening eligibility guidelines for getting into California's adult day care program.

But Democratic leaders in both houses are slowing down new cuts to state services in hopes that the state’s economy continues to improve, and the need for cuts eases by this summer

Right now Sacramento robs one to “protect” another, even as the voters are still clutching the illusion that it can all be done without more revenues and as the campus demonstrators still think that everything could be fixed if only administrators got paid less. It just ain’t so.

But the cut is not as severe as it might first seem. Schwarzenegger in his budget also proposed increasing the prison medical budget by $519.1 million this fiscal year and adding $532.2 million in 2010-11, a total of $1.05 billion from now until June 2011. The Legislature will wait until after the governor's May revision to decide exactly how much to allocate to corrections and other major portions of the budget.