With a lot of the spin (especially in the liberal media) out there being that, "the Republicans are holding up a state budget," I thought I would take an opportunity to walk FR readers through this budget process, and how this simply isn’t the case. The reality is that the process of negotiating a budget acceptable to all parties simply fell apart.
Let us start with the understanding that the California State Constitution provides that a state budget must receive the votes of two-thirds of the votes in both chambers of the State Legislature. Then let us look at the budget process as it took place (such that it did) during the Spring. First of all, and most unfortunate in this process, is that Governor Schwarzenegger introduced a budget that contained billions of dollars in deficit spending. From there, the ‘formal’ process of approving a budget through hearings and such was a partisan game, where as part of posturing on the eminent budget negotiations, every decision made was in favor of liberalism and spending.
Make no bones about it, Republicans have and continue to have the same concerns about the size and scope of state spending. And have had a list of their top-priority items to try to cut spending and help along the California economy. Our GOP leaders in both houses made a tactical decision that instead of putting forward these programmatic reforms and cuts, they would challenge Democrats to come forward with their own belt-tightening proposals, with an articulation of the #1 GOP requirement for a budget — that it be balanced.
Negotiations occur in the back room between the "Big Four" — and eventually on the Assembly side, negotiations advance to the point where there are enough votes to pass a budget. But given the two-chamber requirement to pass a budget, this is where the critical breakdown occurs in the process. Instead of continuing negotiations to work towards achieving the same goal on the Senate side, which was not done. So a unicameral budget document is passed out of the Assembly that was predictably "dead on arrival" in the Senate, and then the Assembly closed up shop, with Fabian Nunez infamously heading off to Europe on an extended vacation.
Of course, rather immediately, Senate President Don Perata declares that the package (the budget and trailer bills) passed in the Assembly won’t fly in his chamber, as one of the trailer bills contains a significant group of tax cuts — and Democrats don’t like tax cuts. Also, Senate Republicans make it clear that it won’t pass their chamber because it is not a balanced budget.
Now, up this this point, two things have happened that have clouded the public relations case for Senate Republicans. The first is somehow some sort of fudged numbers that the budget deficit in the Assembly-passed document is about $700 million, when the reality is that with phony accounting and gimmickry taken into account, its still a budget with well over two billion in deficit spending.
But probably the most challenging is that primary due to the chosen GOP strategy of making the majority party proffer potential ways to reform the budget, the very important and need programmic reforms that have been a priority for Senate Republicans from the outset have not been fully and publicly articulated, leaving the perception that all Senate Republicans care about is cutting some spending to bring the deficit spending into line (and of course, everyone wants to use the ‘Kabucki" $700 million number, when the problem is much bigger.
Anyways, Senate Democrats voted for the Assembly budget (but without the negotiated tax relief) and Senate Republicans (predictably) voted down that same budget, which it is important to remind readers, they never signed off on in negotiations. Then Perata told Republicans basically to disclose what they would need to see a budget look like in order to support it.
It is only at this point, really for the first time, the specific points of importance to Senate Republicans are injected into the public debate. Yes, their top priority was and remains the need for a balanced budget, with no deficit spending. But also right up there on their list is implementation of the Governor’s proposed CalWORKS welfare program, the permanent elimination of thousands of vacant state government positions, and more. Also, the much-mentioned reform in CEQA has been a ‘must have’ for the GOP Senators from the get go.
Important here is to note that many of the proposal from Senate Republicans represent an ongoing savings, looking ahead to try to reduce the size of projected future budget deficits. And very significant here, is that the legitimate policy items being put forward by Republicans deserve to be a part of the budget negotiations as much as those of every other caucus. But here is the catch — most of the Senate Republican concerns cannot be addressed with the use of a line-item (blue pencil) veto by the Governor. These involve actually changes in budget jammed through the Assembly before four-caucus negotiations were complete.
So now it seems that many want to pressure Senate Republicans to vote for a budget on which they never agreed, which does not contain any of their top priorities, and which, frankly, is a budget that needs a lot of improvement. It seems to me that this outcome was fairly predictable. Again, Senate Republicans are being remarkably consistent, and also happen to be making a lot of sense.
So now, in order to move forward, the next step seems rather obvious. The Governor should call a meeting of the "Big 5" (yes, that means asking Speaker Nunez to cut short the remaining time on his vacation abroad) and re-engage in a budget negotiation process that will lead to a compromise budget that not everyone is happy with, but is a better deal for Californians than the one currently languishing in the Senate.
Finally, all of California’s 120 legislators should return to the Capitol. This ‘recess’ should be ended now, as there is no state budget. Legislators are paid a full-time salary, and should be at the Capitol until this matter is resolved. And, if they are in the building, they could immediately pass the proposal by Republican Senator Jeff Denham to approve the funding of vital state services during the budget impasse. If Perata and Nunez aren’t willing to call their chambers into session to do so, then we can lay the blame for any problems coming from the lack of a budget at the feet of legislative Democrats.
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