AT JUST A FEW MINUTES before midnight last night in one of the most critical state budget votes in history, Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) just couldn't contain himself. He needed to poke fun at President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's admonition to all senators to sit down before voting on three stopgap measures designed to keep our state from running out of money.
"I'm just checking, Mr. President. I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt," he joked.
And then came the 25-14 party-line vote, with Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) abstaining, which turned down three stopgap bills passed by the Assembly last week, which would effectively keep the state from issuing IOUs to contractors, the disabled, elderly and the poor. Passage of these bills, containing $3.3 billion in cuts, mostly to education, needed to happen before the end of the fiscal year that ended Tuesday. As the cuts were allocated to the previous fiscal year, the opportunity to save was lost at midnight. According to the Los Angeles Times, issuing IOUs will cost the state another $3.4 billion in interest.
The moment of levity at a time of fiscal calamity irked Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) "We're about to lose $7 billion in 6 minutes. ... Folks are joking and it's really just beyond belief."
Later, Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), who helped seal the bipartisan deal in the Assembly told John Myers of KQED-Radio that he was disappointed in the outcome in the Senate. "The Assembly acted responsibly..."
ON A SIDE NOTE: The governor of course vetoed the two budget bills presented to him yesterday. (See below) No surprise.
There is nothing good in this mess. But it may have the desired benefit of curtailing the super unplanned runaway development in Oxnard.
All of it on the backs of the taxpayers.
The kind of development in Oxnard does not relate to need but rather making the landowners and developers richer than Croesus.
Further it is difficult for me to believe that some members of staff and council don't have their hands out.
While in the recent past Oxnard Council members have made references to being more fiscally sound than Ventura those same members created over 450 million dollars of bonded debt and will admit to a 10.1 million dollar deficit.
And this is only the beginning.
With the ignoring of the general plan, the proposed change in the SOAR boundary, the unannounced subsidies and gifts of taxpayer money to friends of the Oxnard Council Ventura will remain the shining light on the hill.
The side benefit for schools in last night's mess will be an increase in Prop. 98 minimum guarantee level so not all bad.
I guess the Sacramento Democrat liars and thieves were either on a deserted desert island or in a deep coma on May 19 when we voters rejected their phony propositions and told them to cut spending and not raise our taxes.
Adam,
You're wrong. Progressive Democrats like me voted against all the props. The Democratic party didn't even endorse 1A because enough of us opposing the spending cap.
Polling afterwards has shown that 46% of NO voters on 1A want some tax increases in the budget. See more here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6220192/Why-Prop-1A-Lost-Powerpoint
Increasing taxes on alcoholic beverages (75% support)
Increasing taxes on tobacco (74% support)
Imposing an oil extraction tax on oil companies just like every other oil producing state (73% support)
Closing the loophole that allows corporations to avoid reassessment of the value of new property they purchase (63% support)
Increasing the top bracket of the state income tax from nine point three percent to 10 percent for families with taxable income over $272,000 a year and to eleven percent for families with taxable incomes over $544,000 a year (63% support)
Prohibiting corporations from using tax credits to offset more than fifty percent of the taxes they owe (59% support)
While voters strongly support these options to help California increase its revenue, voters are strongly against specific spending cuts proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger:
76% oppose cutting public school spending by $5.3 billion
73% oppose cutting funding for state colleges and universities by $1.2 billion
68% oppose cutting the state's funding for health care services by $1.1 billion
62% oppose cutting the state’s funding for homecare services by $494 million
More tellingly, Los Angeles County rejected 1A handily, while approving a local tax increase measure by wide margins. Other local communities have adopted similar local tax increases.
Californians want the legislature to lead by implementing progressive tax increases, making the wealthy pay their fair share, and by cutting waste where possible. The polling overwhelmingly supports this view. They don't realize the extremist rump minority of Republicans won't allow it because of California's unique and preposterous 2/3 rule for budgets and tax increases.
Oh sure as long as the teachers and the school district get their money we don't have a problem. Reality check! The various school districts are part of the problem. Throwing more money at education is not going to solve the problem of lazy incompetend teachers. LAUS has a 50% graduation rate. What do we do? We give them more money, becaus that will somehow fix the drop out rate. California needs to go over tha cliff so that we can renegotiate contracts.
D. Atkins - You are just brilliant. Kindly calculate how many of these upper income taxpayers leave the state for each dollar in elevated taxes you Dems promulgate - You should have seen your comrades on C-Span today - Lois Capps and Henry Waxman - disccussing the approval of hundreds of millions which neither could account for in health care with unlimited funding - they hadn't read what they were approving.