Posted on 02/11/2009 12:05:59 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have reached a tentative deal to close the state's projected $40 billion budget gap, according to sources close to the negotiations.
Staff members are working out some drafting issues, one source said, but a vote is scheduled for Friday.
Details of the pact are still emerging, but the plan involves tax increases, cuts and borrowing. The state also stands to receive billions in federal stimulus money as the package approaches closure in Washington.
Sources said Tuesday the plan would raise sales taxes by one cent on the dollar, increase income taxes across the board and hike the vehicle license fee from the current .65 percent of the vehicle's value to 1.15 percent. The taxes would last a minimum of two years.
As a tradeoff for new taxes, Republicans demanded that the deal include a limit on future state spending. The restriction would require the state to place money into a rainy-day fund after reaching a limit determined by state revenues over a 10-year period.
Voters would have to approve the spending limit, likely in a special election later this year, and it is particularly controversial among education groups who constantly seek more state money for schools. Concerned that the state's powerful teachers' union would try to kill the spending restriction at the ballot, budget negotiators included a provision that would extend the new taxes to five years if the spending cap passes.
Economists have estimated that California could receive at least $10 billion in federal stimulus relief for schools and social services. That money could offset some proposed budget cuts in those areas, depending on how much California receives.
State leaders are also counting on a plan to borrow against future California Lottery revenues, which also would require voter approval. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Yawn...sounds like the same-old, same-old...massive spending and taxes going up.
Great! Gives me more incentive to shop tax free on the internet.
Hey , we get to vote on some of it .. Oh joy.
entitlement gubamint in action
What an Austrian mess.
Jaaa!
When he leaves office, which can’t come fast enough for all of us taxpayers here, it will be a good day until they swear in the next bum.
He will have presided over at least a doubling of the state debt and the same for the budget or close to it.. not to mention his green legacy.
even a Trojan Horse made from Austrian Oak can fall prey to the ‘kennedy’ boring beetle, once infected ,, welll ,,
Look on the bright, he may be our next Senator.
$2 billion for solar power plants alone.
I'm really at the point of despair. The state governments are almost all "lost." SCOTUS soon will be lost along with the rest of the federal bench. Congress is lost and will soon be passing never-to-be-reversed gargantuan entitlements that kill work incentives, independence, etc.
If my wife didn't need to be in California for her job (animation), I'd gladly move to a state that hasn't lost it's financial/ political/ cultural mind.
Unfortunately, the way things are looking under Obama/ Reid/ Pelosi, it soon won't matter much where in the USA one lives. As LeftNewsWeek finally admitted on its cover this week (... candid, now that the election's over?), "We are all Socialists now.
Where’d the 12 cent sales tax increase on gasoline go? The article doesn’t mention that.
Raising taxes, easy.
Collecting taxes, not so easy.
CA politicians realizing tax collections are not going up as expected... pricesless.
To be sure, the budget shortfall will be much more next year and then the real crisis will begin, along with massive layoffs. I still predict that CA will eventually have to cut spending 15% across the board.
The Republicans have folded on this terrible deal. The tax increases are stunning. The limit on state spending is probably laden with loopholes. In addition, the spending is so out of control now that the limit is only putting a finger in the exploding dike. These tax increases are permanent.
These tax increases along with anti business environment in California will continue to drive business away. The tax increases will not generate the expected revenue. There will be an even larger crisis next year.
Shades of ‘Re-Pete’ Wilson with a Pub set to sign off on it,, a Pete Wilson now backing Meg Whitman for Gub.. The next Gub will make GRay Davis blush and gag
It’s getting harder and harder to cope. The liberals are destroying the nation and Republicans have simply given up. There is no one to save us from the slavery of communism. I am sad for my children, they will not be free. I am sick of this country and its degeneracy and corruption. Everywhere it is nothing but fraud and lies. I am disgusted.
In the summer of 2003, I had no good idea the size of the financial mess the Austrian would inflict upon California.
While I was aware that the Austrian wasn't the brightesat apple in the barrel and that he carried a great deal of personal baggage from his European upbringing in post war Germany and his marriage into America's most celebrated leftist family, I didn't fathom the depth of his abilities to waste the people's money... and feel good while doing it.
California, and politcal conservatives within the state, had a golden moment when the populous revolted against a truly compromised executive. During that fleeting moment the electorate made a poor choice and at least 3 generations will suffer easily avoidable, unnecessary consequences.
In fact, the Schwarzenegger years may prove to be the tipping point in the sovereignty of the state. His inept shepherding of California may indelibly mark the golden state as a cultural outcast, unwilling to participate in the cultural melting pot we call a federal republic because of a perceived allegiance to a nearby homeland.
Arnold is following orders; the goal is precisley the merger of American and Mexican national identities into a super-state. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
In the past I dismissed the Amero talk and so forth as mere conspiracist paranoia, but it is now clear that the effective merger of Mexican and American systems is not only the plan, but is indeed well underway.
What advantages beside energy reserves, labor and open spaces does the US gain by incorporating the 31+, United Mexican States into the USA?
We get some nifty narcoterrorist organisations, and kleptocratic ruling families as well!
They forgot to add money for the highways at the border. They need to resurface them for when they open up the borders to Mexican immigrants.
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