political analyst larry gerston weighs n >>> good morning, there's lots to do today in the bay.scott budman, will be emcee today at the fourth annual silicon valley duck race and festival in los gatos. look at those. last june, 15,000 rubber ducks raced their quacks off to raise $60,000 for 16 local charities. scott wants to see how much more they can raise this year, get by 1 p.m., you sponsor a family or even a flock of ducks, get your chances to win $1 million. now, for the food and fun you have to be there for the slide show, go to nbcbayarea.com. >>> and why should the ducks have all the fun? maybe you feel like gliding silently along the water as the sun sets along the horizon. check with the folks of cal kayak in oakland's jack lemmon square, you can as they are holding moonlight kayaking tonight at 7 p.m. as the sunsets, the city lights add atmosphere, evenings topped off with the beautiful moon rise, quite the peaceful image. married couples take note, my wife and i we had the battle for the paddle when we did an ocean kayak recent squlichl if you want to get ready to c

nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston is here with how close we have to look. given the fact there was a quick passage and a quick veto, how can you be optimistic? i know you're a superpositive person but even for you this seems a stretch. >> it's hard to be superpositive with it comes to the legislature and the governor, but there are two very important principles guiding everything at this point, kris, just surrounding the entire process. one, political philosophy. two, budget math. now, philosophically the democrats want to save education and those tattered programs. republicans don't want to go along with tax increases what so ever. the math, that's the secondish you. but what began as a $14 billion hole after they cut, what, 11, $12 billion from the budget has become a $7 billion hole thanks to greater-than-expected revenue for the first six months of that year. so you put that together and it's a problem still. it's not as big a problem as it was. >> okay. but we do have a $7 billion gap. and how are we going to come around to closing that? >> got a coupl

. >> nbc bay area analyst larry gerston there. even if a budget isn't in place by friday the state has enough cash on hand to avoid handing out ious. >> gas prices are going down. the national average for a gallon fell 11 cents over the past two weeks, the average price in the u.s. $3.32. of course in the bay area prices are higher in oakland a gallon of regular will be 3.82, compared to 4.06 a month ammo. a year ago it was $3.15. if crude prices hold gas prices are expected to drop 10 more cents by the middle of the m. if you drive a hybrid car you can enjoy your last days of freedom in the carpool lanes. on friday those yellow clean air stickers will no longer let you zip through traffic with just one person in the car. the dmv is giving out white stickers for low emission cars but those are tougher to get. only electric cars or cars with compressed natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells qualify for those. let's get a monday morning forecast, back to work forecast with christina. >> call it what you want, it's looking good today. hi

our political analyst larry gerston says lawmakers have an extra incentive to make sure a budget is passed on time. >> we know this much. they don't get paid after the 15th, they have a $10 billion gap to close, and they are running out of time. >> voters passed proposition 25 in november, that docks lawmakers' pay permanently for every day the budget is late. >> california not the only state dealing with a budget deadline. on capitol hill they are trying to come up with a deal for the federal government. the chair of the house budget committee, paul ryan, says a deal would help calm the markets, get us to recovery. for more on that and the rest of the news before the bell it's nicole. good morning. >> hey, great to see you, scott. we need a lot of calm out there. futures are slightly higher but it was a tough week on wall street last week. markets fell for a sixth straight week, amid concerns about a global economic slowdown. more disappointing data out of the united states last week. notably from the fed which saw signs of slowing in several parts of the country, also worries overseas es

nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston says get road to see a slew of lawsuits challenging power. john chiang, who issues paychecks, decided to dock their pay $400 a day because there's no state budget. in november voters gave him the power to withhold lawmaker pay if no budget was passed. lawmakers say they passed a budget last week but jerry brown vetoed it. the new fiscal year starts next week. >>> san jose mayor chuck reed plans to trim worker pensions it's raising red flags. he's seeking a ballot measure to trim pensions. the california attorney general said that would be against the law. reed has acknowledged some of the legal risks but says the alternative is municipal bankruptcy or greatly reducing staff. he says pension costs will be $255 million this year. >>> barry bonds on hold. federal prosecutors asking for more time to make a decision about whether to retry the star. the federal government was supposed to make the announcement friday but now asked the judge to delay upcoming hearings until the end of august. bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice in april bu

larry gerston says lawmakers are close. >> we've had revenues come in that have been about $7 billione than people expected. now we're down to $7 billion. the legislature the other day passed something else, a couple of other tax, fee increases cut to the $5.8 billion. it can be done. >> he says while no lawmaker will admit it the pay docking proposition passed by voters in the fall is working because it added urgency to budget talks. >> the giants get the day off waiver heading to chicago to play the cubs. the time off will give them time to soak in their sweep of the cleveland indians. they plied the final game last night. madison bumgarner had 11 strikeouts for the giants. they beat the indians 3-1. the a's get the day off as well. the marlins come to oakland tomorrow. the a's dropped their last game in philly yesterday, they had to face philly's ace roy halladay. >> it may be safe to go back in the water. a shark jumping over a surfer in florida. the four-foot long spinner shark took to the air. a photographer for an orlando newspaper caught this on saturday but he says he didn't

larry gerston says lawmakers are close. >> we've had revenues come in that have been about $7 billionnow we're down to 7 million. the legislature passed something else, a couple of tax increases, fee increases to cut to the $5.8 billion. it can be done. >> gerston says while no lawmaker will admit it the pay docking proposition passed in the fall is working because it has added urgency to budget talks. >> 5:45. time to get a look at the forecast with christina loren. change is in store. >> change is in store but boy, oh, boy, this is cool. we have this video from mammoth. you see that guy there, he's dressed as uncle sam. he is in a perfect attire, perfect form. we have openings in mammoth, the slopes open until july 4th. take a look. this is recent video from mammoth. there is more snow on the way as we head into this week. pretty significant. if you wanted to go skiing, you have a chance to because of all of the snowpack we received. a lot is still holding on. let's take it live out here, show you what's going to bring us the next round of rain and snow to the highest elevations in

we're joined by our political analyst larry gerston now. any gimmicks here, any side carts?> that's the unfortunate thing, especially for someone like jerry brown. it looks like we're going to see a budget once again full of these gimmicks. deferred maintenance, borrowing from special funds and the like, all these things. but here are a few changes that we need to see that will hone us in on what to expect. there's going to be a delay in repaying the school's $3 billion that the state had promised they had been owing to schools for years. $1 billion from the children's first five program but that's subject to court challenge. and perhaps $1.7 billion from drastically scaled-back redevelopment programs. you add all that up and it's $5.7 billion. the remainder, fees, borrowed funds from other agencies and some program reductions. but in short, dog gone it, it's the same thing we've seen again and again. >> flat tire, we're replacing it with the spare, so to speak? >> a spare that's half flat already. yeah, it's not good. the fact of the matter is that there are real serious is

we bring in our nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston. is he really sitting pretty here? >> he'd like to think he is but he's not. the fact of the matter is president obama right now is in good shape. why? because of the good feelings the public has, raj, about the death of osama bin laden. now, very soon that's going to be yesterday's news. and in the end, the public doesn't care, usually, so much about foreign policy. what they care about is their wallet. and when it comes to managing the economy, guess what, no 54% for the president. 41% think he's doing a good job, 58% think he's not. >> what happens in the next three to six months as we close out 2011, will it spike or will it go down, his approval rating, based on this economy? >> you expect something like this to go down as a blip, so to speak. but when we look at the economy, there are three answers to your question. jobs, jobs, and you can fill in the blank. jobs, okay. since the end of world war ii, a little piece of data sometimes goes a long time. since the end of world war ii, of the four times that the unemp

larry gerston says get ready to see a slew of lawsuits challenging power. lawmakers are upset chiang docked their pay $400 a day. they gave them power to withhold if a dunlg wasn't passed. they say it was passed but governor brown vetoed it. starts next week. next in with christina. >> a new day. especially towards the coast. much cooler this morning. inland it's still a little on the hot side as high pressure is still in control and we are already in the 60s. 63 degrees in livermore. i'm forecasting about 95 degrees later on today. 87 in fremont, 91 san jose and a cool 75 degrees in the city of san francisco. as we head through tomorrow we drop off even more. temperatures falling into the 80s and then the 70s return saturday. let's check your drive. how fast are we going on the roads this morning, mike. >> not as fast as we'd like to go. it's safer that way. it's very contest gooded, 680 both directions. the bottom of the map coming into fremont out of sunol, a slowdown because of an accident blocking one lane a distraction because it's the fast lane. slow