Dan Walters: Brown-GOP budget talks hit a wall

Sacramento Bee ^ | March 15, 2011 | Dan Walters

[Second Amendment First]

Confusion reigned in the Capitol Monday over whether Gov. Jerry Brown's overtures to five Republican senators to support his budget plan had utterly failed, or whether suspension of their talks is merely a temporary setback.

Whatever the case, it appeared that Brown's hopes of placing $10 billion-plus a year in tax extensions on a June 7 special-election ballot had been dashed. Even if a budget agreement eventually emerges, the election will almost certainly be delayed.

That would seem to be a minor hiccup, but having an election on June 7 – before the summer doldrums set in – has been one of several conditions Brown hoped would give his plan its best chance of winning voter support.

He also wants at least a veneer of bipartisan support, no active business opposition, a simple yes or no on a single measure, and perhaps an all-mail election to create an optimal climate for what would be, under any circumstances, an iffy situation – asking voters to raise taxes by about $1,000 per family per year in the midst of the worst recession in 80 years.

Several of the five Republican senators who had been negotiating with Brown said they hit a rock wall because he – and presumably other Democrats and powerful union allies – balked at major public pension reforms and a tight spending limit. The senators also wanted to cut the extension of temporary income, sales and car taxes, first enacted in 2009, from the five years Brown wants to some briefer period.

[Second Amendment First]

...asking voters to raise taxes by about $1,000 per family per year in the midst of the worst recession in 80 years.

I guess the handful of Republicans don't want their heads on a stick.