Free Republic

Among the details that are just now starting to trickle out is that this so-called "no tax budget" includes loads of fee increases – which many believe are tax increases by another name – and at least one direct tax increase. Details remain sketchy, but sprinkled throughout the 22 bills in the budget package are increases to the alcohol and beverage catering fee, the liquor license fee, the enterprise zone application fee, some sort of parking fee and numerous judicial fees: a first paper filing fee, a telephonic fee, a summary judgment fee and a court security fee. Meanwhile, the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have reached the "framework of an agreement" to solve the $19 billion budget deficit, Schwarzenegger's spokesman said this afternoon. . . .

Reporting from Sacramento -- Under the gilded dome of the state Capitol, the Cone of Silence has descended. A veil has been drawn. Secrecy has prevailed as the wizards have labored behind the green curtain to find a way out of California's $42-billion budget hole. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the top four legislative leaders have again been meeting behind closed doors as California teeters at the brink of fiscal insolvency. Rank-and-file lawmakers, special interest groups and the public have been shut out of the bargaining process. There have been no public hearings, no chance for input -- and that has...

OAKLAND — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Legislative leaders barnstormed the state Monday to tout their agreement on a $37.3 billion infrastructure bond package likely to play a pivotal role in November's election. The tarmac at Oakland International Airport was awash in bipartisan praise as the "Big Five" — the governor and the Assembly's and state Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders — held their news conference before jetting to Burbank, Santa Ana and San Diego for similar events. "I think this is going to be terrific for the whole state of California," Schwarzenegger said of the plan lawmakers approved in the...

Until the early 1980s, the track record of the state Legislature for turning out relatively punctual and balanced state budgets was pretty good. But something has happened in the last 20 years that dramatically has reduced its ability to deal competently with the state budget. The result has been increasingly late and unbalanced spending plans. It all began, I think, on an early summer's day in 1983, when the Legislature had reached a (then) rare impasse in its budget deliberations. In frustration, Governor George Deukmejian invited the legislative leaders to his office in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve their differences....

** Last night's "Big Five" meeting reported here, between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders on their next steps for moving some version of the big infrastructure bonds package forward, seems to have come up with little so far. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata summed up afterward saying the governor was urging a legislative solution. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez continues to hold out some hope for the school construction and levee repair bonds passed in his house. Republican sources say their caucuses are less than enthused.

Of all the factors contributing to California’s fiscal woes, one of the most fundamental and pervasive is the collapse of the constitutional process by which the state budget is developed in the first place. Ever since the Magna Carta, it has been a settled principle of governance that the authority that requests funds should not be the same one that approves them. This is the heart of our separation of powers, and the most important single mechanism to check the excesses and abuses that occur whenever mere mortals are spending other people’s money. Following this principle, California’s constitution sets forth...