Posted on 06/12/2006 7:15:31 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Superficially, at least, the Capitol's annual budget dance resembles what was happening two years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a brand-new governor.
Although the budget was awash in red ink in 2004 and Schwarzenegger had been elected on his pledge to clean up the state's fiscal mess, he unilaterally raised spending by $3 billion over his original proposal in an effort to placate Democrats and, he hoped, persuade them to finish the process on time.
Schwarzenegger was willing in 2004 to deepen the deficit by spending the extra $3 billion if it bought him an on-time budget, apparently in the belief that the voting public would conclude that electing him had produced positive results.
Schwarzenegger is facing another election this year, this time for re-election, and there's still a substantial budget deficit but once again, the governor has loosened the purse strings because once again the state has a windfall of taxes on stock market transactions--and once again he wants a timely budget to impress voters. And this year, he's likely to get it.
A legislative conference committee completed work late Saturday on its version of the budget that, in the main, closely parallels Schwarzenegger's budget in size and general approach.
Both Schwarzenegger and lawmakers, painfully aware of what happened after then-Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature squandered that year's one-time windfall in 2000, are being much more careful to avoid long-term spending commitments this year. However, we should remember that either version of the budget would still spend about $7 billion more than projected revenues next year and hefty operating deficits are projected for the rest of this decade.
Thus, the budget may be on time, but it's still troublesome that during a period of unprecedented economic prosperity and record revenues, it's still fundamentally unbalanced.
(Excerpt) Read more at shns.com ...
CA: Budget Vote Thursday
Capitol Notes / KQED ^ | 6/12/06 | John Myers
Posted on 06/12/2006 5:48:34 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
And if we would have kept Gray Davis, then the spending would have been tens of billions higher.
We need to take the surpluses and pay down our debt. Raising spending without doing that is foolhardy IMO.
In 2004, they authorized borrowing of $15 Billion dollars, more than double what they needed to pay off the then existing deficit. A nice little slush fund.
How? Republicans were unified in fighting Davis' borrowing scheme.
They couldn't have spent more because they didn't have more!
Yeah, but the leftover isn't enough to paper over one year's deficits. How is this supposed to cover several years?
Arnolds fault ? Bush's fault ? Illegals fault ?
They rolled the dice and hoped that revenue would increase by a large enough amount each year to get them off the hook.
The problem is if ya don't control or cut spending, which they have not done adequately by any stretch of anyone's imagination, it'll never work.
The leftover was about $8 Billion. That combined with accelerating the revenues through new federal legislation has given them quite a piggy bank.
"What cliff?" they say. The future looks muy peligroso!
add 10 billion a year for the cost of illegals, that's a fair chunk of change in a budget. That is a state budget for a few states, btw..
Neither Arnold nor President Bush can say spending didn't increase under their watch, albeit either their support for tax cuts or freezes and an attempt to return or at least allow some money to remain in the taxpayers hands and not be tossed up as an offering to the social winds of change machine some of their policies also advocate.
imo, we're not dealing with fault as much as a reluctance to deal with facts financially and act accordingly.
Smoke and mirrors for anyone who is watching closely.
Keep drinking that koolaid. You out-of-staters aren't on the hook for the final bill.
BUMP!
Arnold may step down in a few years so Mc Clintock may even be governor.
As if the two are mutually exclusive.
Sounds way too logical, DO. The liberals know no common sense.
Good point.
This would be a good thing, as long as it won't interfere with McClintock serving at least 2 full terms.
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