Posted on 08/03/2007 10:02:52 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday said the state budget stalemate is delaying work on pressing policy issues such as health care reform but is at a loss about how to end it.
The state Senate failed a second time late Wednesday to pass the $145 billion spending plan approved last month by the Assembly, falling one vote short of the two-thirds majority required to pass it.
Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders say they are mystified about what it will take to persuade at least one more Republican to support it. Speaking Thursday to reporters, the governor described a frustrating negotiation process in which Senate Republicans keep raising new issues, even after he has assured them their previous concerns will be addressed.
The state's ongoing budget deficit, use of state environmental laws, how transportation bond money will be spent and tax credits for corporations are among the many issues Republican senators have raised.
“We worked through many of those issues, but obviously it wasn't enough,” the governor said during a Capitol news conference. “So I don't really know now what it takes to close it, so I hope they know.”
He said some of those matters should be dealt with after a budget is signed because they are not directly related to the state's annual spending plan.
The budget is more than 6½ weeks overdue. With the fiscal year more than a month old, colleges, special education programs and some social service groups that rely on state funding are not receiving checks.
Schwarzenegger said it was important to break the deadlock so no programs would suffer and so lawmakers can start addressing other major issues on this year's agenda. Those include health care reform, legislative redistricting and negotiations over a water initiative to build reservoirs and canals.
“There's a lot on the plate, so let's not cut off those things because of the budget,” he said.
He urged senators to keep working and not wait until the Assembly returns Aug. 20 from its summer recess.
The Senate came within one vote of ending the impasse Wednesday night after Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria defied his party and voted with Democrats to support it.
At least two of the Senate's 15 Republican members must support the budget to reach the required two-thirds majority. On Thursday, no other Republican appeared eager to join Maldonado.
The Senate also failed to pass the budget on July 21, one day after it was approved by the Assembly with bipartisan support.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said it was the Republicans' responsibility to decide how to end the stalemate and come up with the additional vote to approve the budget. He dismissed senators and was back in his eastern San Francisco Bay area district on Thursday.
Perata has said Democrats have compromised enough with the minority Republicans and are not willing to make further budget cuts. Schwarzenegger has said he is willing to cut programs through his line-item veto to meet Republican demands that the state's deficit be reduced from $700 million to zero.
Assembly Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Tustin, criticized Perata for sending Democrats home, saying many issues remain to be worked out.
“It's very difficult to negotiate when you're negotiating with ourselves,” he told reporters Thursday. “We've made it pretty clear from the beginning what some of our basic needs were; the Democrats have known that for a long, long time. We're not there yet.”
The two-thirds majority required to pass a state spending plan gives the Republican minority leverage during budget negotiations that it lacks the rest of the year.
It is using that leverage to try win concessions on several other issues. In addition to eliminating the deficit, Republicans are seeking changes on other issues that are not directly related to the budget process.
For example, they want assurances that billions of dollars in transportation bond money approved last year by voters will be spent as intended in the ballot measure. They also are trying to rein in efforts by Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has been pressuring local governments to address the negative effects on global warming of their various development projects.
Republicans fear Brown's actions hold the potential to delay or stop housing and road projects.
Schwarzenegger said he was willing to address that issue later but told reporters, “It shouldn't be part of the budget.”
Without a signed budget, the state controller's office said it could not pay $326.6 million to community colleges; $170 million to school districts for programs such as special education and summer school; $140 million to companies that sell products to the state; and $300 million to preschool and day care programs.
Controller John Chiang said he will be unable to pay $2.1 billion due in August unless there is a budget agreement by the end of the month.
The Republican State Senators that are holding out are doing this state a bigger favor than we can ever repay them for, imo. We owe them support now and down the road to fight the red tide of incrementalism and socialism.
Rampant socialism in in high gear across the land so anyone who is able to jam a log in the gears of the dems and their cohorts including the Gub is OK by me.
is in
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
What's alarming is that by definition the health care plans are not included. So we can add those costs and others on top of the $145 billion.
Note: "Schwarzenegger said it was important to break the deadlock so no programs would suffer and so lawmakers can start addressing other major issues on this year's agenda. Those include health care reform, legislative redistricting and negotiations over a water initiative to build reservoirs and canals."
Good luck...
These folks have not grasp on reality whatsoever.
I agree that the Republican holdouts should be applauded.
These folks have not grasp on reality whatsoever.
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I agree, I don’ know what PeRATa and the gUb are smoking but they are the real problem, not the Republicans who
ARE looking out for the taxpayers and legal residents of this state.
This is a very frustrating time in the political life of conservatives in California.
How are you going to like the idea of shelling out toll fees in the next year or two, just so you can drive on the freeways your gas tax dollars are being diverted from?
My blood is boiling over this one...
I hearya..
It may well be that the only recourse is to do what a lot of folks have already done. Move.
For one thing, he reminded everybody that Arnold's signing the stupid "Global Warming" law to reduce CO2 emmissions drastically just stopped the production of cement in it's tracks because it is the biggest producer of CO2 while being made, thereby STOPPING ALL THAT INFRASTRUCTURE HE ASKED US TO VOTE FOR!!!
Now CA has many bridges ready to fall down but no cement will be made here for crucial up-grades!!!
What more does anyone need to say about this idiotic celebrity boob, pretending to be a real chief executive of the USA's most populous state??? He deserves recalling 10 times more than Gray Davis did and Gray REALLY deserved it, BIGTIME!!! (a little Dick Cheney lingo for ya there)
I refuse to do that. Norm, I’ve had that same inclination more than once. Then I realized that once you start retreating you’ll always be going backward until there’s no place left to retreat to.
Our problem is that there is no state level (Ca.) advocacy for conservatism these days.
Until we have such a public advocacy group, our voices will not be heard. Yes, one good guy will pop up from time to time and we’ll think they’re great, but he/she won’t get any meaningful backing, because that backing will have been short-circuited by the Repubican party leadership. I wish it weren’t so, but it is.
We have many fine conservatives in this state. They have been betrayed by a group that would make Benedict Arnold look lilly white.
Death (figuratively) to the Republican leadership in this state... Until a major political house-cleaning at the top, the two party system in this state will share the same health as a cadaver.
If I thought we could recall Schwarzenegger without the intervention of Pete Wilson and the top California Republican leadership, I’d be all for it.
This time both the left and the right would probably front (leftist) public figures so popular that any chance of a political vs popularity contest would be impossible. And the idea that a conservative would stand a chance in such a field would be nothing but a faint pipe-dream.
2010 will be the first chance we have to place someone with conservative credentials in the Governor’s slot. And if we don’t gutt the leadership of the state RP right now and change the leadership positions on things, we won’t even stand a chance then.
The state RP leadership is probably already courting leftist public figures. If we let them do this again, we will have learned nothing. We can’t pick a conservative they oppose. It simply won’t work. We either replace the leadership or we accept that we’ll have no voice for another four or eight years.
That's the difference between ANALytical and analytical, my FRiend. (grin)(I ought to know, right?)
Well, I’m the one that said Arnold couldn’t be defeated last time and you said that he could. Was he?
If you want to dismiss the Pete and company angle, I can’t stop you. I still think it’s time to gutt the California Republic Party leadership. Then replace them with some bonified conservatives. The rank and file in the Republic Party state aparatus isn’t bad. It’s the top that sucks.
Don’t you think it would be nice to see the California Republican leadership stand behind a conservative for a change? It’s been a long time since they have.
Look what happened with Eisenhour after the war! Same song, first verse! Repubs were so desperate to end the Dem domination, they went with the popular war hero who turned right around and appointed Earl Warren Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and proceeded to destroy the 10th amendment entirely with plenty of help from that fool George Wallace!!! (oh and Lester Maddaxehandle, too)
I think we’re both frustrated to the max knowing that California can be turned back to the plus column if a good plan is developed and we work that plan.
As late as the Simon campaign, the state of California was within just a few percentage points of going in the right direction. Simon wasn’t a very good campaigner and he didn’t get support from the state leadership or the Bush people, but he still almost pulled it out.
I think we’re both frustrated to the max knowing that California can be turned back to the plus column if a good plan is developed and we work that plan.
As late as the Simon campaign, the state of California was within just a few percentage points of going in the right direction. Simon wasn’t a very good campaigner and he didn’t get support from the state leadership or the Bush people, but he still almost pulled it out.
I just don’t buy into the ‘California is gone’ mindset. It isn’t. If we appeal to the right instincts like law and order and others, we’ll pick up a lot of folks that some would consider rather soundly left.
Every Republican office holder should be pounding on conservative values like a drumn, daily. Then when it comes election time, the public would understand the concepts. At the present time Tom is about the only guy doing that. Instead of him sounding like he’s right in the middle of conservative thought like he should, he almost sounds fringe because his voice is the lone one in the wilderness.
Well, those are my thoughts on it.
It all seemed to begin a cresendo in 1999 and grew throughout the 2000 Presidential campaign, all the way to 2002 where it just got too embarrassing and disheartening for the Wasps...
Well, although I have gone the same route (an ex-Republican), my loyalties remain with the conservative branch. That’s where my heart is. That’s where I’d like to return if the leadership with pull their heads out.
Thanks for the comments. Here’s looking forward to that day in what I hope will be the near future.
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