Budget/Fiscal

California

After an all night session – 45 hours for the entire session – the State Senate voted early this morning 27 to 12 to approve a massive state budget that includes spending cuts, tax increases, and borrowing money to close to $40 billion deficit. California has been at a standstill for the last five days as legislators grappled over a state budget. Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders struck a deal with Senator Maldonado in exchange for providing the third needed vote to pass the state budget. The three Republican votes for the state budget came from Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria), Senator Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto), and Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield).

California

It is ironic that Sacramento chose yesterday to honor Captain Chesley Sullenberger who heroically managed to land his imperiled aircraft into the Hudson River and averted disaster by saving his crew. It is ironic because the plane analogy is a metaphor for what is happening right now in Sacramento. In this case the state is out of fuel and needs emergency money in order to land and avert a crisis.

As Senator Cox spoke yesterday on the floor of the Senate, he made reference to a number of metaphors including a correction of Senator Calderon’s botched reference to “Chicken Little.” Senator Cox spoke about the straw that broke the camel’s back, implying that the state taxpayers could no longer bear the load of the tax burden (a tax burden that by most measures ranks somewhere in the middle of the country).

California

About the last person I expected to be talking about on the Vanguard was Senator Abel Maldonado. Maldonado represents among other places my former hometown of San Luis Obispo. I remember him as the Mayor of Santa Maria, the moderate Republican who defeated the right wing racist Mayor of that town. He rose to prominence as a moderate, often casting the decisive vote on budgets.

He’s about the last person I expected to be holding up the budget, but here he is doing just that. And it appears to be all personal from where I sit. It has nothing to do with policy. Nothing to do with what’s good for this state. It is all about what’s good for Abel.

California

Valentine’s Day came and went, and still there was no budget. On deep into the night it continued, desperately trying to find one more Republican Senator brave enough to end this nightmare, to cast the yes vote, and to save the state of California from fiscal turmoil the likes of which it has not seen before in this lifetime or many others. And yet on Sunday, there were no heroes.

First, the word came that Dave Cox, the Senator from the Sacramento Area could be the third vote. But late on Saturday night or Sunday morning, he said no.

No CSR Flexibility*, Categorical Flexibility

California

At the outset, I should qualify this analysis as saying that it could change in a final budget bill or could get thrown out the window if there is no budget deal.

For this year, the budget has a $2.4 billion reduction for what was budgeted in the 2008-09 Budget Act. It has a $5 billion reduction in Prop 98 Funding from 2008-09 to 2009-10.

California

Given the fact that this is the bicycle capital of the world, I risk a lot by saying this, but the priorities of people are a bit off in this country. Originally the state legislature was going to meet at 9 am this morning to vote on the budget agreement.

However there is one problem. Tomorrow in Davis there will be the Amgen Bike Tour. In Sacramento that will be today from 1 pm to 4 pm. There will be 100,000 people in downtown Sacramento today. Not of course to watch the budget vote, but to watch Lance Armstrong.

California

I rarely comment in this space about comments to other posts, but given that I am trying to bring together multiple threads into a single article, it actually works quite well.

The anonymous commenter said:

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