State 8-7

In light of the state’s budget crisis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a three- to four-year one-percent sales tax increase on 8/4. While the plan was not embraced by legislators from either party, Schwarzenegger aims to use the increase along with cuts and reform to repair the ailing budget. Democrats favor higher corporate taxes and income taxes over a sales tax hike, which they believe will affect the state’s low-income residents. (/tax807)

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Saying that the best protection against lax law enforcement in California’s agricultural fields is union representation, State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu±ez amended his farm labor bill on 8/4, strengthening its protections for farmworkers, citing the five who died in this summer’s heat, ranging in age from 17-year-old Maria Vasquez Jimenez in Stockton to 64-year-old Jose Macarena Hernandez, who died on 6/20 in Santa Maria.