California Lawmakers: 'Huge Progress' Made Over Budget

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California officials hope to reach a deal Sunday on how to erase a $26.3 billion budget deficit that has forced the state to issue IOUs for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Legislative leaders said they made "huge progress" Friday night in talks in the governor's office and plan to meet again Sunday night in hopes of finalizing an agreement.

A deal would clear the way for votes later in the week in the state Legislature.

"I expect by Sunday night that we are likely to have an agreement," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said after the Friday night session ended.

A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron McLear, said negotiators were "certainly in a position where we could close this very quickly ... but we still have some issues to work out."

They include how much to set aside in an emergency reserve fund, how much to borrow from local governments and whether to guarantee that schools will always be repaid lost funds when the economy sours.

McLear said staff members were trying to work out some details on Saturday.

California has had a series of budget shortfalls in recent years. The latest comes only 4 1/2 months after lawmakers and the governor ended months of negotiations over how to close a previous $42 billion deficit. The state's deteriorating economy and voters' rejection in May of a series of budget-balancing proposals created more red ink.

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Lack of a budget agreement and a drop in state revenue has forced California to issue IOUs for the first time since 1992 to cover bills from thousands of state vendors. Some banks have stopped honoring the IOUs, adding to the difficulties state suppliers face in getting paid.

Lawmakers are trying to iron out the state's latest budget woes as members of California's largest state employee union, Service Employees International Union Local 1000, consider giving their leaders the authority to call a strike.

The SEIU announced Friday that it was sending out ballots to its members asking for authorization for workplace actions that could include a walkout.

SEIU members are angry over the prospect of wage cuts or being forced to take a fourth unpaid furlough day off a month because of the state's budget problems. They're also upset that Republican lawmakers blocked ratification of a new contract that would have limited them to only one furlough day per month.

The local represents 95,000 of the more than 200,000 state workers.

A spokesman for the union, Jim Zamora, said the vote would go ahead regardless of what happens with budget negotiations.

"If a budget is passed, our leadership will evaluate the situation and decide what's next," he said Saturday.

Comments

[Sinick]

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Can anybody believe a single word that comes from the mouth of a "lawmaker?" Methinks not.

[wood62]

The worse things get the worse the budget will get. The more people that are unemployed the less they buy less taxes less revenue for the state. Next thing you know, we will have yet another huge deficit because of the falling revenue. I have oversimplified this and not included the lost property tax due to foreclosures, corporate taxes, oh by the way did I say taxes?

Unfornuatally we have became a society that looks towards the government to provide for our needs. I am against the principal of the government being responsible for every aspect of each individuals life. But if as a society that is what we are going to demand, someone is going to have to pay for it through higher taxes. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. I feel that many of the government sponsored programs should be community based programs like welfare etc... that is my 2 cents worth.

[MarkInEugene]

We need to get unemployment down. Buy American whenever possible not for some nationalistic reason, but to get unemployment down. It's one of the few ways to remedy this situation in a capitalist society. We also need to curtail spending until tax revenues return after people find jobs.

Without jobs, education and infrastructure cannot continue to demand the billions in funding they require.

Without business to provide those jobs, the machine grinds to a halt. We need those green jobs, green businesses. We need to make environmentally compatible things if we are going to continue living large in this consumer-centric society!

[Choicelady]

Spending on social programs is DOWN - the welfare-to-work has declined 34%. Health costs are up becaue your grandma is getting old and running out of savings. CA is being held hostage NOT by spending which IS tied to very real need, but by the 2/3 vote that lets legislators cut high income taxes and corporate taxes but cannot EVER restore those rates. Californians do lead the nation - in narcissism, demand for services without a penny more to pay for them, insistence that we must never sacrifice for any reason, that the golden dream goes on and on, but at no cost to any of us - except the poor. The people the private sector has thrown away - working people, people of color, the elderly, blind, disabled - they don't fit our Golden State self image so who cares? Just so I got mine. Once the leader in affordability of health, education, housing, and good lives for all, the state leads in selfishness and stupidity. Get back to basics - democratic governance - and restore the good life for ALL the state's people.

[M1]

Lots of truth to what you are saying. Very sad. I hope California can pull out of this horrible direction it has been going in for the last 8 years.

[jazgr8]

"Once the leader in affordability of health, education, housing, and good lives for all, the state leads in selfishness and stupidity."


Is it possible that these two things are interrelated?

[DAWK]

do you see a kind of stressed-out un-reality setting in,via these confused lawmakers?
it's like they are all stuck in a huge 'lifeboat',in the ocean,stranded by the loss of (oars or engine to propel themselves out of solvency) and to row too the distant 'shore of solvency'....yet they keep saying,'we can see the shore from here' as they all paddle with their trembling hands,but floating all around the boat are real 'oars',as they push these oars out of their way? of--course these real oars,floating right next to the boat are 'raise taxes on the rich/use the 50% vote process/tax big oil to the fullest/ sell legal pot/stop services to illegals/ remove enterprise zones that do not work/sell state lands' /and so-on!!

[TovSquirrel]

Did they all resign?

That would indeed be a HUGE improvement over the current situation.

[MadDemocrat]

California finally got what it was asking for. Massive financial chaos. Arnold, clearly a RINO and the rest of the Democrats and liberals have largely blown that state up financially and morally. They all need a good bath and a real reset. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. Hehe

[julia23]

Aren't you the opposite of a good caring Christian.

[TovSquirrel]

California asked for nothing.

California got Democratic­-Republica­n bull$h!t.

Yes, Californians voted them in (over and over again, ad nauseum), but they, like the rest of the good ol US of A have been duped.

Vote for YOUR interests and not those of the Democratic­-Republica­n party. Democratic­-Republica­n politicians are not working for you, but against you in thought, word and deed.

[calfacon]

I haven't seen anything about cutting subsidies to the oil companies, nothing about cutting subsidies to the film industry. The very young, the very old, the very fragile and the very sick are about to have their lifelines cut. And all the people who provide those services are lossing their jobs; the people who often make minumum wage, scraping by on 2 or 3 three jobs.
Well done, government of California.
Let's vote out every single incumbent, every one of them!

[digdeeper]

By huge progress take it there will be even more cuts that affect the poor.

[Reader451]

The law that makes budget proposals need 2/3 vote in the legislature will mean no matter who you put in, a few mostly Republican, @55hats can wreck the budget for everyone. Make laws 50% + 1, like all democracies, and get sanity back to politics.

[Choicelady]

Absolutely! The decline in the state's standard of living for the majority can be chalked up to the Prop. 13 requirement for a 2/3 vote that keeps the minority in the driver's seat. It's a nightmare. Change that, and you restore a balanced state with good even great services for everyone.

[jazgr8]

I don't agree. Being one who does not trust either party very much, the 2/3 vote ensures that neither party is able to dominate an issue and there are checks and balances.