Budget Progress?
Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee provides some more vague budget progress speculation:
It’s still a long way from being fully cooked, but the fuzzy outline of a deal on the much-delayed, deficit-ridden state budget is becoming visible as the deadline for placing measures on the November ballot draws near.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen says Saturday is the deadline, but Capitol types believe it could be stretched a week or two. And the deadline, whenever it may be, is an important ingredient in any budget deal, because at least one of the pending elements would have to be placed before voters.
The central element is what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls “budget reform” – some new constitutional provisions aimed at preventing future fiscal problems by creating a “rainy day” reserve and giving governors more authority to cut spending when revenue falls short.
He’s willing to trade some new taxes – especially a temporary boost in sales taxes that would raise about $6 billion a year – for those reforms, even though Republican legislators balk at new taxes and Democrats don’t like spending curbs.
“We believe they need to come out of their partisan corners,” Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said Tuesday, adding that if there’s no deal before the ballot deadline, there will be a “total meltdown.”
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