Special election to address California budget crisis still being debated by Bob Morris Tue, Feb 15th 2011 The California legislature must agree by a two-thirds vote to hold the June 8 special election that is essential to Gov. Brown's attempts to balance the budget. If approved, voters would be asked to support $12 billion in budget cuts and to extend existing tax hikes for five more years, increasing revenues by an equal amount. However, Brown does not yet have the votes to get the election approved. A two-thirds majority is a high threshold indeed, and Democrats as well as Republican legislators are balking. All too predictably, Democrats generally oppose spending cuts while Republicans are adamant about no new taxes. This is the same tiresome ideological deadlock that created much of the budget problem in the first place. The governor says Democratic legislators are "not there yet" while he sees a "lot of good will" from Republicans. Well, this seems more like wishful thinking than a concrete plan. His plan is indeed a bold one. Take it to the voters and ask them to approve the cuts and taxes or be prepared for vastly more severe cuts. If voters say no or the election is not held at all, then the ongoing train wreck that is the California budget will unquestionably get much more serious. Time has run out. Action is needed. Further complicating things, proposed cuts in spending for the disabled, poor, and aged are almost certain to be challenged in court as such benefits are federally mandated. Gov. Brown is asking for a waiver from the U.S. Health and Human Services to allow him make the cuts. In an almost Kafkaesque scenario, Dan Walters of the SacBee says such spending cuts would demonstrate that Democrats are robustly serious about tackling the budget problems. However, it could backfire if challenged in court because then, voters might assume that was the expected outcome and the whole gambit was merely a cynical ploy. But really, there must be a better way to balance the budget than by slashing assistance for granny who is hobbling around in a walker or to use such assistance as a bargaining chip. In related budget news, Brown canceled the sale of state buildings proposed by Schwarzenegger after it was determined this would cost the state far more in the long-term. This is a laudable move, but also means the state must "borrow" $800 million more from special funds, an unfortunate practice that has been going on for far too long. This is akin to borrowing on a credit card to pay current debt. It's a desperation move. Finally, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office says the current level on spending on state pensions is unsustainable and should be cut back. They recommend reducing pensions for all new hires, including the University of California system, teachers, and county workers as well as state employees. If the special election is approved and passes, California faces severe cutbacks that will impact everyone. If it doesn't pass, the next round of budget cuts will be brutal indeed. Either way, California faces a difficult future.
February 24, 2011 Californiaâs Tax Aversion Complicates Budget By ADAM NAGOURNEY OAKLAND, Calif. â For nearly two months, Gov. Jerry Brown has been immersed in a furious effort to win the support of the Legislature for his proposal to close a $26.6 billion budget gap with spending cuts and by asking voters to approve $12 billion in taxes in a special election this June. Yet even if Mr. Brown rallies the Legislature behind the plan in the coming weeks â no small matter, given that he needs the support of two-thirds of lawmakers to put a tax measure on the ballot â the fight in Sacramento might prove to be the easy part. Mr. Brown would then face the challenge of persuading voters to support extensions of sales, personal and vehicle registration taxes in a national environment where hostility to taxes is soaring, and in a state that, no matter its propensity for electing Democrats, has repeatedly rejected tax initiatives. And one of the major national antitax advocates â Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform â has intervened, pressuring Republicans here not to give Mr. Brown the votes to put the measure on the ballot, and pledging to make certain voters defeat it if they do. The stakes are high, not only for the future of a state that has been under fiscal siege for three years â without the tax increases, Mr. Brown and lawmakers would have to make $26.6 billion in cuts â but for Mr. Brownâs governorship as well. âItâs tough; itâs very tough,â said John A. Perez, a Democrat who is the speaker of the Assembly. âBut itâs doable.â Even with the cloud of uncertainty in Sacramento, Mr. Brownâs aides and Democratic leaders have quietly begun laying the groundwork for a campaign on behalf of the tax extensions that is expected to cost $40 million to $60 million, a huge amount of money reflecting the cost of statewide television advertising here. Much of that money would come from state labor unions. Labor groups are already running polls and conducting focus groups that have, officials said, found great but not insurmountable resistance to tax increases. One lesson from those polls and focus groups that Mr. Brown has already incorporated into his speeches: emphasizing that these are extensions of taxes that people are already paying, rather than new taxes. Mr. Brownâs advisers have studied the tactics used one of the few times voters supported a tax increase â in 1993, when Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, won approval for an extension of a half-cent sales tax. Mr. Brownâs aides said it was critical that the measure be perceived as having bipartisan support in the polarized capital, even if it meant just counting the five Republican lawmakers Mr. Brown will need to reach the two-thirds threshold. (In 1993, Mr. Wilson and the Assembly speaker at the time, Willie L. Brown Jr., a Democrat, teamed up to campaign for the half-cent sales tax extension.) Democrats plan to directly link the tax surcharges to education and public safety. (Mr. Wilson linked his sales tax surcharge to saving public safety jobs; it did not hurt that in the midst of the campaign, some of the worst wildfires in the history of California swept the hills of Malibu, producing images of firefighters in action on the evening news.) In addition, Democrats said, Mr. Brown would seek to make the case that after years of stopgap approaches to the stateâs mounting budget problems, this one would, barring any calamity, legitimately balance the budget and put the state on a road to normalcy. âMost of the surveys we review say essentially the same thing: If the people believe that this is a fair solution and that it actually has the real possibility of putting the fiscal crisis behind us, that they will support it,â said Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat and the president pro tem of the State Senate. âPeople want us to get on with it.â Even at these early stages, there are disagreements. Some Democrats argued that Mr. Brown had to hit hard in warning about what would be cut if the tax extensions were not enacted. At the same time, Mr. Brown has warned against alarmism, saying that would backfire in a state that is, after three years of a budget debacle, almost hostile to public officials on budget issues. History suggests the challenges facing the governor. In 2009, an effort by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor, and Democratic leaders to win approval of similar tax extensions failed. âWe ended up beating those taxes two to one after being outspent 20 to one,â said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. âAnd we are going to have a lot more resources this time. We wonât show up to a gunfight with a knife.â Before last yearâs elections, Mr. Norquistâs group obtained signatures on a no-tax pledge from all 27 Republicans in the Assembly and 12 of the 15 Republicans in the Senate. Mr. Norquist noted that Republican lawmakers in California who had voted for tax increases before had lost and made clear he intended to make certain that happened again if any of the signers gave Mr. Brown the votes to put the taxes on the ballot. âI think itâs extremely unlikely and Iâd be very disappointed â my feelings will be hurt â if these people break their word to the people of California,â Mr. Norquist said. âThe people of California will crush them if they break their promise.â Mr. Brownâs advisers and Democratic legislative leaders said they were hopeful of picking off enough Republicans to get the taxes on the ballot by making the argument that they were not voting for tax increases â and thus breaking their pledge to Mr. Norquist â but for giving voters here the right to decide what they want. Mr. Wilson won support for his tax initiative by a considerable margin: 58 percent of voters passed that surcharge. In this environment, Mr. Brown would be happy to win by a single percentage point. âAnd remember this,â said Dan Schnur, who was Mr. Wilsonâs chief spokesman at the time. âYou had a Democratic Legislature and a Republican governor working in lock step. The tax was earmarked to go to firefighters. And on the day of the vote, you had raging fires going on in Malibu, so people in Southern California going to vote saw fires on their way to the ballot box. I spent years denying that I set them.â