You knew it was going to be a tough budget year for fiscal conservatives from the minute that Governor Schwarzenegger introduced his budget to the legislature — one that was more or less embraced by the ultra-liberal legislators that dominate the State Senate and State Assembly. As a Governor who campaigned in two different elections as a fiscal conservative, we were looking to him to propose a budget that reduced the size and scope of state government. But instead, again, he introduced a budget that contained deficit spending. Using some football parlance, I equate the introduction of this bloated budget by the Governor the equivalent of a football team downing the ball on their own 20 yard line! Where we wanted strong negotiation between Democrats advocating big government on one side and the government championing taxpayers on the other — instead we got a ‘status quo’ budget.
(Need some ideas on how to shrink state spending? Remember this? Or how about these ideas?)
Predictably, legislative Republicans were unhappy with the budget, and negotiations began to try to trim some of the spending, but of course when you are starting out so close to your own goal line, it is challenging to regain yardage. Still, ultimately the budget that passed out of the State Assembly contained over two billion dollars in cuts (not a small amount) as well as a number of other important policy wins for Republicans. Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines and his budget team can take a lot of credit for this achievement. Still, while Republicans were able to take credit for making the budget a little better than it could have been, it was still a big, larded up spending plan for the state. Unfortunately, right after passing a budget out of their chamber, the Assembly adjourned (Speaker Nunez flew off to Europe for his family vacation) — before their work was complete (they should have waited to see if the Senate would approve that spending plan). This jammed the State Senators. The bad news is that a tax-cut package negotiated by Assembly Republicans that passed out of the Assembly was immediately killed by Senator Don Perata. The great news is that for the first time in a very loooong time, State Senate Republicans rallied and insisted that if you want their essential votes (at least two were needed), more cuts and programmatic changes would be needed.
**There is more – click the link**
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am
As Governor of the most populous state in the Union, why are you hell-bent on giving him a pass?
He has the ability, all on his own, to balance the budget with his line-item-veto. The Republicans have enough votes to prevent any attempt by the Democratic majority to override his veto.
Let’s face it, the problem lies right in the Governors mansion and no where else.
I call on all California Republicans to stop shilling for the Austrian socialist who was once an illegal alien.
B Russell