It appears that the back-room negotiated budget deal has hit a snag. Apparently in the area of cuts to the Department of Corrections, the Big 5 agreed in concept to an overall amount of cuts, but not in any degree of specificity to the exact cuts. As we all know, there has been a wide disagreement between the left and the right about how to make cuts (or whether to make cuts) to this part of the budget — Dems favoring reducing the prison population, some Republicans calling for other cuts in the Agency that don't impact prisoner population.
Apparently the thought was the the “epic debate” over this issue would be sorted out sometime after the rest of the deal was adopted.
From what I understand, word started to spread around the Capitol that Democrats were planning to, in fact, not leave these cuts “to be named later” and put up the cuts for a vote that would lead to over 30k inmates being released from prison earlier than the end of their sentences.
The bad news is that this puts a serious pause in the budget negotiations — but the good news is that the marketplace has rooted out a flaw in the plan. It simply isn't realistic to “kick the can” on specific cuts. The reality is that this budget deal wasn't done… Yet.
The Big 5 folks have already met again on this issue with no resolution yet. For my part, the underlying policy issue about how to make specific cuts to the Corrections budget is now eclipsed by the Democrats breaking the terms of the budget deal. How do you negotiate with people that can't keep their word?
That said, this “kicking the can a few feet” strategy of simply ignoring this divisive issue seems like it was a bad idea anyways.
I wonder if there are other areas of “broad agreement” in this deal, waiting to blow up?
July 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am
This is why we should not have a Oligarchy (a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons ) style of government in Ca.
If we would get rid of the big five negotiations on the Ca budget and go to full assembly and senate floor debate on all aspects of the budget we would at least know where all the reps stood on all these issues and would give us lowly citizens a chance to express to our reps what programs we want funded and witch ones we want cut , which anti business, anti liberty regulations we want repealed , which taxes need to be cut to provide economic growth ,etc.
If we never get a chance to point out the idiotic programs that have turned this state into a cesspool of socialism , i am afraid we will not be able to salvage whats left of this once Golden State.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Roy,
Feel free to drop by the Budget Conference Committee hearings when they go through each budget item and allow for public comment.