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Sacramento - California voters agree with Gov. Jerry Brown that tax increases should help close the state budget deficit, and they want to vote on his plan for raising the revenue. Sixty percent of those surveyed, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, said they back such an election. The alternative being pushed by most GOP lawmakers — forgoing an election and balancing the budget by cutting more from state services — was supported by just 33%. Support for the cuts-only approach dropped to 25% when voters were informed that it would probably require reductions in school funding, according to...

SANTA CLARITA -- Gov. Jerry Brown, joined on his budget tour this afternoon for the first time by a Republican lawmaker, put the assemblyman on a stage in his hometown and flanked him with administration and public safety officials supportive of Brown's tax plan. But the rhetoric was ratcheted down on both sides, and not even a panelist's mispronunciation of Assemblyman Cameron Smyth's name could provoke him. "Smyth," the legislator said after he was introduced at his alma mater, pronouncing the Y like the I in "rice." "It's just my old high school, but that's cool." The Democratic governor, who's...

California is being looked at as the rare alternative to Tea-Party rule these days. Jerry Brown’s direct style and transparent budget strategy as governor have led to a waning in people’s longtime pessimism about state government. Yet, with the extreme policies of other new governors dominating the news -- and with Meg Whitman remaining in the public eye-- one must wonder how it would have been if California had voted the other way in 2010. It was certainly significant that voters went to the polls and beat back Whitman's $178 million candidacy. This is further relevant because in California elections...

Hold the champagne: New contracts may be too costlyState workers looking for good news on contracts recently negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration won't find it in an internal state memo issued by the Legislative Analyst's Office last week.Because those contracts don't come close to saving the state enough money, the memo says, the deals heighten pressure on the state to cut costs through "hiring freezes, furlough programs, and layoffs." The memo, sent last Wednesday to Senate Republicans, estimates that the contracts would cut costs by only about one-third of the $308 million that Brown projected in his proposed budget.

Gov. Jerry Brown today issued a 12-point pension reform agenda his office says he will introduce in the Legislature "with or without Republican support." The first seven items seek to end abuses or tighten pension funding rules. The last five involve more systemic changes and are listed as "under development." PENSION REFORM PROPOSAL APPLIES TO STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 1. Eliminate Purchase of Airtime. Would eliminate the opportunity, for all current and future employee members of all state and local retirement systems, to purchase additional retirement service credit. (RN 14777) (Note Walters, SB 522, would eliminate Air Time) 2. Prohibit...

Think the budget negotiations are dead? Get ready for something that could contribute to a Plan B: Tax the rich. We just got our hands on a new poll due out Friday that shows blow-the-roof-off support for something that has only been mumbled about in the most progressive corners of the Dome: Increasing taxes one percent on Californians making more than $500,000. It would raise $2.5 billion towards the state's $26.6 billion deficit. We explored this issue weeks ago, but few would talk it up then. But now, they might. How high is the support? Try a whopping 78 percent....

Two days after Gov. Jerry Brown called off talks and suggested Republicans were obstructionist, Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton and his budget point man, Sen. Bob Huff, held a news conference today to explain their moves over the last week. Dutton said first lady Anne Gust Brown "yelled" at him in one meeting with the governor last Wednesday over a lack of cooperation. "Frankly, I was yelled at more than I was talked to," Dutton said, "and mostly by Mrs. Brown, not even Gov. Brown." Brown press secretary Gil Duran blasted Dutton later. "And the dog barked at him, too,"...

California Gov. Jerry Brown won the blame game and lost the budget. Brown began with a proposal to put a measure on the ballot to extend the 2009 tax increases on income taxes, sales taxes and the vehicle license fee. It was a gamble. Voters rejected a similar tax measure in 2009. Most GOP lawmakers have signed no-new-taxes pledges. Even Brown didn't dare campaign on today's tax plan -- and he's a Democrat.Then came the bargaining. Republicans say that Brown wouldn't give on spending dear to the public-employee unions that helped elect him. The Brownies say that the Party of...

The collapse of budget negotiations leaves a temporary vacuum as state leaders decide where to head next.This much is known: the state needs to solve a remaining $15.4 billion deficit, and lawmakers have exhausted many options in the realm of spending cuts and fund transfers.Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats have given up on a June tax election. But they have not abandoned their desire to solve most of the remaining deficit with additional tax revenue. Republicans say they remain opposed to taxes, though they have not provided a complete alternative.As novel as Brown's approach has been this year, he...

Gov. Jerry Brown of California cited a long list of Republican demands as the reason he dropped his plan for a special election in June to approve tax extensions for the California budget. Los Angeles Gov. Jerry Brown has dropped his plan to broker a bipartisan California budget by asking voters, in a special election in June, to extend taxes to close the state’s $26.4 billion gap by $12 billion. Budget cuts enacted by the Legislature and signed last week covered only $11.2 billion of the deficit. Mr. Brown, who needed just four Republicans to sign off on the special...

The federal government gave California's state government $120.7 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year to underwrite education, health services, welfare grants and dozens of other programs, a very detailed new report from the state auditor's office reveals. More than a sixth of the money - $23 billion - may have been a one-time injection of funds, however, because it came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as "stimulus." Those funds eased the state's budget crisis, especially in education finance, and their disappearance has exacerbated the current budget deficit. Education was the largest single category of...

Brown's Countdown, Day 76: Budget talks deteriorate as GOP unveils big request list State budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers deteriorated Friday as Republicans released a long list of proposals to overhaul California government that Democrats said had further divided the parties. According to a document Senate Republicans provided to reporters, they asked Brown for pension cuts to current and future employees, as well as changes to teacher tenure that reward performance and a hard cap on future state spending, among dozens of ideas. ... The list provided by Republicans included notations of where Brown and Democratic...

Sacramento - -- The up-and-down budget negotiations at the Capitol appeared to have taken a nosedive Friday, as Republican leaders in the Senate presented Gov. Jerry Brown with a long list of issues they want resolved before agreeing to vote to allow a special election on Brown's plan. Then after a day of vague statements on what they wanted, Republicans on Friday night released publicly a point-by-point list of what they had offered, what had been rejected and what the administration agreed to or countered with....Action on the budget has been stalled all week as Democrats awaited the Republicans' demands....

SACRAMENTO -- Democrats angrily rejected a long list of demands -- 53 issues in all -- that Republicans made Friday in budget negotiations with Gov. Jerry Brown, and are now amping up threats to go around the minority party to ensure a special election on tax extensions. Senate Republicans turned in their proposal to Brown on Friday afternoon after he complained he had yet to see a "term sheet" outlining their wishes. With time running out to get a special election on the ballot, Brown has pleaded with Republicans to lower their asking price for an agreement to allow voters...

Sacramento - Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law billions of dollars in budget cuts Thursday that will mean fewer government services, particularly for the old, the poor and the sick. The governor signed the new laws to tackle $11.2 billion of the state's estimated $26-billion deficit (Snip) Assistance for the elderly and disabled, in their homes and at senior centers, will also be reduced. State-subsidized child care for 11- and 12-year-olds will be eliminated. Brown sought to use the "painful" cuts he signed to make his case that Republicans should support the plan to ask voters to pay more taxes

Governor Jerry Brown is losing public support for a vote on extending tax hikes for another five years. The Public Policy Institute of California poll shows only 46 percent of likely voters now support the governor’s plans for a tax extension. Back in January, 51 percent said they supported the plan. The poll shows the public appetite for any more special elections has waned since the most recent election cycle. Brown wants to erase a $26 billion budget deficit with cuts and extensions for tax hikes that are due to expire on July 1st.

(Reuters) - Support for California Governor Jerry Brown's plan to shut a $27 billion budget gap has eroded since he introduced it in January, a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed on Wednesday. Democrat Brown wants to close the budget hole with a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes, and he wants voters to get the chance to approve the package in a special election. So far Republicans have opposed the special election and tax hikes.

Both houses of the California Legislature passed the main budget bill today and have now solved roughly half of the state's $26.6 billion deficit, mostly through cuts and taking funds from special state accounts. But nobody's celebrating yet. The Legislature has left unsettled two of the thorniest issues in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal -- the elimination of redevelopment agencies and a special election asking voters to extend higher taxes on sales, income and vehicles. Without those changes, the Legislature will have to cut deeper or find new pots of money other than taxes. So far, Brown and Democrats remain...

California tax payers just took a huge punch in the nose from the same actuaries who provided the cover for state politicians to spike public employee retirement benefits. The latest shocker comes from California State Controller John Chiang who yesterday unveiled a new actuarial report that shows California faces another unfunded debt of $59.9 billion to pay for retiree health and dental benefits over the next 30 years. Controller Chiang highlighted that the unfunded liability grew during the 2010 fiscal year by $8.1 billion; an amount equal to almost 25% of this year’s entire California kindergarten through high school education...

Gov. Jerry Brown's strategy to win the governor's seat has led California to this moment. Today was Brown's self-imposed deadline for passing his budget package and place a $14 billion tax-increase extension on a June special-election ballot. Late Wednesday, Brown wisely asked the Legislature to delay a budget vote. As a gubernatorial candidate, Brown would not say he planned to raise taxes - only that he would not raise taxes without voter approval. He must have known that he would follow the course he had set, but he also knew that 65 percent of California voters had rejected a similar...