The Governor and the majority party in the Legislature after months and months of futile efforts to negotiate an agreement with the Republicans to put a tax measure on the ballot gave up and passed with their new majority vote authority a budget balanced with cuts and a few smoke and mirrors. It was the very thing that Governor did not want. He originally vetoed a budget with a lots of funny business included. This second try was closer to the mark but with no new revenues or taxes.
Apparently the Republican caucus in each House was not listening to the State Chamber of Commerce or many of the state’s largest business interests. There was general consensus that the state not only needs to cut the budget but provide some new revenue to allow for proper growth. You need to invest in the infrastructure, education to attract the top businesses to the State. Investment in R&D at the University of California level is important to the future growth of our economy.
The message was not received or even paid lip service to by the minority party in the Legislature. The anti tax folks were dancing in the streets even while the state’s power brokers were scratching their heads. By refusing to negotiate with the Governor and the Democrats they missed a golden opportunity to get pension reform, a spending limit and other bread and butter GOP reform demands. What they got was nothing.
This may be the last Hurrah of the State GOP Party lead by the brilliant strategists in the GOP caucus. The majority vote budget means the Dems will no longer need to talk to the Republicans and if the Democrats can achieve a 2/3 majority in each house they can pass tax increases by themselves. There is likely to be a special election this fall to extend the tax increases that Brown was hoping for to balance his budget. Those taxes expired on July 1st but could be reinstated by a vote of the people. There is also likely to be an effort in June or Nov of 2012 to repeal Prop 26 which placed the 2/3 majority requirement on the Legislature to pass any tax increases.
As I have repeated more than once in this blog, the voters were tricked into passing Prop 26 which rendered Prop 25 the majority vote budget measure impotent. Yes the Legislature can pass a budget on a majority vote but they can’t add revenue increases to any long term deficit package. They can’t even extend already existing taxes which would have balanced the Governor's budget and for five years would have provided some stability to the state’s fiscal picture.
The very voters who passed Prop 26 will reap the rewards of that measure. Cuts in law enforcement at the local level. Cops and Firefighters are being cut in community after community due to lack of support from the State. The Legislature did pass the realignment measure which will give the locals a part of the sales tax and the VLF. The locals will not be totally independent of the state until they get a share of Prop 13 taxes.
What is the message here? People of California, which kind of a California do you want; one that is economically stable, one that provides vital services , cops on the streets and firefighters who respond to 911 calls. Do we want to be able to afford to send our kids to the University of California let alone the State colleges and community colleges? Right now it is almost impossible to get into the University of California unless you are from out of state or from another country. If that was not bad enough, a State University for non-Californians, you could not afford to send them even if they got accepted.
Let’s hope the voters who elected these Republicans to the Assembly and the State Senate ask those legislators just what they have contributed to California. No new taxes and no new services and no affordable educational institutions and no state parks and no new roads just pot holes. The picture is bleak. My immediate solution is to vote for Governor Brown’s tax initiative and throw the bums out in November 2012.
0 comments:
Post a Comment