Governor Targets Cities, Counties (There's Nothing New Here - Where's the REAL REFORM?)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 11/09/04 | Evan Halper, Jeffrey L. Rabin and Nancy Vogel

[goldstategop]

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said there would be no comment on the details of the budget until today.

The proposed cuts come as the governor attempts to close what he says is a $15-billion deficit for the fiscal year that begins in July. The budget would include no new taxes. But the governor will propose that some of the deficit be erased by obtaining new revenues from Indian gambling and by significantly raising the fees for graduate and community college students.

Schwarzenegger's proposal would involve taking property tax money from local governments and using it to pay some of the state's obligation to schools. City and county officials say they are still suffering from the last time the state made such a shift, during a budget crisis in the early 1990s. That move was supposed to be temporary, but the money was never restored.

The budget also includes at least $1 billion of the kind of borrowing that Schwarzenegger criticized when he was elected and that a Sacramento judge declared illegal last year. It would involve selling bonds to cover the state's annual payment to the pension fund for government employees, freeing up other money to pay down the state's deficit.

The borrowing would be on top of Schwarzenegger's $15-billion bond proposal that will come before voters in March. The governor had earlier characterized the $15 billion in bonds as the last the state would sell to balance the budget.

The governor's staff had briefed Assembly and Senate Republicans on the plan by midday Thursday, but left most Democrats in the dark.

Democrats were told they would be briefed this morning, shortly before the Republican governor publicly unveils the plan at an 11 a.m. news conference.

Officials familiar with the spending plan say it includes about $11 billion in cuts, borrowing, and accounting maneuvers that delay the payment of various state expenses.

Many of the cuts are one-time only, and thus would do nothing to solve the structural imbalance between what the state spends and what it receives in revenue.

[goldstategop]

Many of the cuts are one-time only, and thus would do nothing to solve the structural imbalance between what the state spends and what it receives in revenue.

The last sentence illustrates the real problem with Arnold's budget. Sure its a mixture of one time cuts, borrowing, and smoke and mirrors but it does NOTHING to solve the structural problem that has the state spending more than its taking in in revenue. I have to confess to being disappointed. And the Democrats' whining is only the beginning. As usual, the politicians will paper it over this summer with more accounting tricks. We were promised REAL REFORM and we wuz wobbed. So I plan to vote NO on all the bonds and on Proposition 56 in March to send the Governor and the politicians in Sacramento the message that its time our state government began living within its means like the rest of us.

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