Posted on 06/30/2005 10:09:06 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a key provision in his spending-limit initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot to be part of an agreement on a new state budget, deepening a deadlock as the new fiscal year begins tomorrow.
The governor is pushing for the power to make midyear cuts when the budget falls out of balance if the Legislature does not act to close the gap.
A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said that a new budget proposed by Democratic legislators, which Republicans are expected to block in votes in the Senate and Assembly today, will result in wider budget gaps.
"Our concern is that there continues to be a significant amount of one-time dollars to fund permanent programs," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the governor's Department of Finance. "If that is the case, we think there should be some kind of circuit-breaker to address that."
Democratic legislators contend their budget will result in a gap in the following year, fiscal 2006-07, of about $5 billion, the same as the governor's proposal when savings they regard as unachievable are removed.
"He (the governor) has now said, in effect, that what he put on the ballot in November he wants now if we are going to have a budget," said Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland. "Our counterargument is you can't create a crisis and ask us to solve it."
Schwarzenegger has called a special election Nov. 8 for his three initiatives that would limit state spending, change the way legislative and congressional districts are drawn, and make it harder for teachers to receive job-protection tenure. Five other measures will be on the ballot.
Since January, the governor has been urging Democratic legislators to work out compromises on the issues. But talks so far have produced little if any public movement.
On what the governor has called his "centerpiece" measure, the spending limit, Democratic legislators have repeatedly said that a compromise would be difficult, if not impossible.
When Schwarzenegger told Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, during a meeting Tuesday that he wanted the midyear cut provision as part of a budget agreement, there reportedly was a heated exchange.
"This is another example of the governor moving the goal post literally days after saying he wouldn't inject parts of his initiative into the budget process," said Steve Maviglio, a Núñez spokesman. "Someone that most elected to cure budget dysfunction has become the cause of it."
For five years, the state has been struggling to close a chronic budget gap that began when soaring income-tax revenue from the high-tech boom was spent on permanent programs, producing a big shortfall when revenue returned to normal levels.
The proposal allowing the governor to make midyear cuts if the Legislature does not act to close the gap is part of the governor's Live Within Our Means initiative on the November ballot.
Other parts of the initiative, which is trailing in the polls, would limit state spending to the average increase in spending in the three preceding years and make a major change in the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee.
A previous version of the budget proposed by Democrats was blocked by Republicans on June 15, the seldom-met constitutional deadline for passing a budget, even after Democrats dropped a plan for a $3 billion increase in school funding.
Democrats unveiled a revised budget proposal yesterday that they said is very close to the governor's plan. Perata said the Legislature will remain in session during the weekend if the budget is not passed.
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For five years, the state has been struggling to close a chronic budget gap that began when soaring income-tax revenue from the high-tech boom was spent on permanent programs, producing a big shortfall when revenue returned to normal levels.
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Some stewardship of the state and its budget and economy, huh, c'Rats? And you expect to have any credibility in anyone's eyes except your own beloved lefties and unions?
The Midas Touch of the liberals. Spend, spend, spend for empowerment. Without more and more money to spend to BUY THEIR VOTES AND POWER, they are dead meat. And look at the generic result -- a state economy and demographics, destoryed.
When will the mindless stop voting for these give-away artists???
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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