Last week, I posted on the new plan from California Democratic lawmakers to increase taxes, which is quite a controversial issue here in Sacramento. The other day I saw this interesting opinion article on NCTimes.com. The author thinks the proposals are “hogwash,” and encourages readers to take action. Below is a quote from the opinion.
“On Thursday, we began publishing a ‘days without a state budget’ box on this page as a reminder of the ineptness of our state's policymakers. Today we add a "who to contact" box. We intend to continue publishing both until California gets a spending plan for its current fiscal year.
Despite the voters' best intentions (voiced through the California Constitution and an approved ballot proposition) and a growing $15 billion deficit, the legislative budget talks are a mess.
The matter is now headed to the so-called Big Five, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said Wednesday, referring to the state's top five legislative leaders. The five are the governor, Bass (because of her position as speaker as the ranking Assembly Democrat), state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (the top Senate Democrat), and the top Republicans in their respective houses, state Sen. Dave Cogdill and Assemblyman Mike Villines.
Bass spoke after the Democrats presented their plan to fix the deficit: $8.2 billion in new money, primarily through tax increases. Bass said, in essence, ‘no more cuts’ and fell back onto the controlling Democrats' long-standing line that California does not have a spending problem; ‘It has a revenue problem.” (Republicans are holding firm to a no-tax-increase stance.)