Posted on 03/29/2011 5:17:25 PM PDT by SmithL
Gov. Jerry Brown announced this afternoon he halted negotiations with legislative Republicans over a deal to place taxes on the ballot to help resolve California's remaining $15.4 billion deficit.
A June election appears to be off the table entirely. Brown is no longer pursuing a two-thirds vote for a June tax election, while Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told reporters he will not pursue a majority-vote option, either.
"Yesterday, I stopped the discussions that I had been conducting with various members of the Republican party regarding our state's massive deficit," Brown said in a statement this afternoon. "The budget plan that I put forth is balanced between deep cuts and extensions of currently existing taxes and I believe it is in the best interest of California. Under our constitution, however, two Republicans from the Assembly and two from the Senate must agree before this matter can be put to the people."
"Each and every Republican legislator I've spoken to believes that voters should not have this right to vote unless I agree to an ever changing list of collateral demands," the Democratic governor added.
Senate Republicans on Friday released a list of major policy changes they wanted as a condition of voting for Brown's budget proposals. The move was widely seen as disruptive to talks, but the governor had reached out to three Senate Republicans this weekend in hopes of salvaging a deal before deciding to call off talks.
One of the three, Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, blamed trial lawyers, unions and "other stakeholders" for being unwilling to negotiate on pension cuts, a long-term cap on spending and regulatory changes.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.sacbee.com ...
Yea.. or sorry
This is a terrible injustice to the hardworking men and women in government that have dedicated their lives to serving the public at every level.
A sad, sad day in America,
/sarc (if you need to know)
I have Leftist friends in CA who voted for him (they would NEVER vote for a Republican). Yet they are hoping he won’t raise their taxes. California is STILL the land of fruits and nuts. I miss the beauty but not the politics of California.
I agree. All those retired “public servants” who are getting 6-figure retirements are to be pitied. All praise the sacrificing “public servants” and the DIMocRATS. Cry me a river.
Brown wanted the job. He has it. Let him and the other Dems fix the problems they have created by over-spending for decades.
So’s his brain.
Gov Brown and the Dem coalition going to go the referendum route, another year of IOUs chits and add the Illinois strategy of suspending payments to contractors and suppliers?
Lord of the Flies time has arrived at the California ballot boxes.
Brown is the butt boy of the public employee unions. As a Californian, it amazes me that the Republicans actually held together. In years past, a few of them caved and voted with the Dems to pass a budget.
Now, the budget no longer requires a 2/3 vote of legislators to pass. Thanks to the idiot voters of CA, they voted for a simple majority in the November elections. That means that the Dems can pass a budget on their own. The problem is that legally, it is supposed to be balanced. They use smoke and mirrors to get by that one. However, now the gap is so huge, they either have to have the voters vote to extend an expiring sales and income tax levy or make drastic budget cuts. It can’t get on the ballot without some Repub votes.
What is a Brown to do now? He could work to reduce state employee pensions, eliminate pay increases, and actually do pay cuts. However, Brown owes his existence to the unions. So, he will blame the Repubs. LOL Right now, Brown is in a straight jacket. Watch him put forth a budget with Draconian cuts in an effort to scare the hell out of Californians.
I guess since there is no further things you can do, it is time to go home. Job well done Moonbeam.
With respect to raising taxes, they should have been dead before they ever started.
The people already voted. They said no. Time to cut some more, moonbeam.
So what you are saying is the Dems can pass a budget without a referendum, but chose to duck the issue by wanting 2 GOP to vote to put the budget on referendum. GOP needs to be smart and counter that the Dems have the majority to propose and past a budget with 50+1. Unfortunately that is not the message the rest of the country is hearing. MSM blames budget crisis on the refusal of GOP to cooperate.
They weren’t budget talks, they were tax increase talks.
It’s always them evil Repubicans..
Ya’d think Brown would have known this was the likely outcome.
Not exactly. The Dems wanted to put extending tax hikes on the ballot and to do so requires 2/3rds which amounts to them plus 2 GOP members of each house. If they get it on the ballot, it only requires 50% + 1 voter approval.
The spending bill itself can easily be passed by the Dems since they have over 60% majorities in each house and thanks to the moronic majority of CA voters last Nov, only 50% + 1 is needed.
They don't need the GOP. They continue to use their old demonize and blame the Republicans media tactic from when they needed a 2/3 majority to pass a budget. They DO NOT want to own this fiasco but have little choice.
You must be joking. Brown’s position seems pretty clear that he doesn’t believe over-spending is the reason for the deficits. If he did, he wouldn’t be whining about the Republicans being so uncompromising about raising taxes.
Dims at local, state, and federal levels seem to have a mental block on deficits. Their “solutions” all revolve around raising taxes permanently and minor spending cuts that will be temporary.
What is so difficult about starting with a ZERO budget, and subtracting budget items from the ACTUAL available revenues until nothing is left ? You’d think they had never needed to live within their means before.
It doesn’t help that the WAY they structure taxes seems like it was designed to drive high earners and businesses out of the state.
People say, “it isn’t a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem”, but that isn’t quite correct. It isn’t a revenue AMOUNT problem, but the revenue METHOD is definitely part of the problem. High marginal taxes targeting the high earners, small businessmen, and corporations results in high unemployment and more demand for social spending programs. When $40K of income qualifies you as “rich” and a target of the top tax rate of 10%, something has gone very wrong. When only the people who can afford to eat at restaurants are hit with a 10% sales tax while grocery getters pay nothing, something has gone very wrong. When property taxes eat up another 10% of a high earners pay, something has gone wrong.
The state is never going to recover without comvincing businesses and the wealthy to return, and they’d be fools to return as long as CA has policies that make them targets.
Tax rates should be cut and flattened. A flat 4% income tax rate and a 4% sales tax rate on all goods and services, and eliminate the corporate income tax. Those would actually raise more tax revenue while also attracting businesses and employment back to the state.
By all means, cut 50% out of the budget. But as long as businesses and the wealthy know they’ll still be expected to foot the whole bill, no matter the amount, they WON’T return to CA.
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