Calif Legislature "one vote short" of budget fix... or is it?

[Little-Acorn]

I keep hearing this line: "California is one vote short of a budget fix". Meaning, those wascally Wepublicans just aren't getting with the program. It's them who are holding up the works. If just ONE of them would come from the darkness into the light, everything would be fine, and we'd have all the tax increases we want.

Excuse me?

What about the alternate plan that those same Republicans submitted? You know, the one containing NO tax increases, and which reduces or cuts out funds for useless agencies, benefits for illegal aliens, and for radio ads currently flooding the Calif airwaves telling us what a hazard Global Warming is and how we have to change our lifestyles to stop it? The one that Democrats bottled up in committee and never let out onto the floor for a vote?

When is the media going to point out that we are just a few Democrat votes shy of passing THAT one, thus solving California's budget crisis?

Don't hold your breath, folks. The newspapers ARE with the program, so you won't be hearing about that one.

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http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...ote-shy/?imw=Y

Legislature still one vote shy of budget fix

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
1:27 p.m. February 17, 2009

AP SACRAMENTO — The pressure on California lawmakers to pass a midyear budget fix and avoid financial calamity intensified Tuesday, as layoff notices went to state agencies, hundreds of public works projects were to be stopped and the Legislature appeared unable to break a political logjam.

At stake is the financial stability of the nation's most populous state. Tax revenues have plunged by billions of dollars as the recession clobbers California, leaving the state without sufficient cash to pay its bills.

The remedy offered by the governor and lawmakers is to reopen the budget in the middle of the fiscal year, enact deep cuts and tax increases, and work out a fix that will cover the state's spending through June 2010.

The tax increases contained in the current legislative package, worth some $14.4 billion, are proving to be a near insurmountable hurdle to sealing the deal. The state Assembly appears to have the votes to pass the budget plan, but it is snagged in the Senate, where Republicans have refused to support new taxes.

“I think it's time that we need stop treating the taxpayers of this state of California as a personal ATM,” Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, said during a Senate floor debate on the tax increases. “Funds are overdrawn.”

The Senate's leader said the chamber will remain in continuous session until it passes the budget plan, which is intended to close a $42 billion deficit in this fiscal year and the next one. Asked by reporters if he had a backup plan if the lock-down fails to produce a compromise, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said, “We're going to get it done. That's the plan.”

Tuesday's legislative session followed a frustrating holiday weekend that failed to yield a compromise, despite one all-night session and others that churned into the evening.

Despite attempts at backroom deal-cutting, legislative leaders were unable to find one additional Republican in the Senate to pass the budget plan.

California's two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget requires all Democrats and three Republicans in each house to support the plan.

[MtnBiker]

Why don't they allow drilling for oil off of their shore and create tax revenue from that? Naw that makes to much sense, bring a product to market that virtually everybody uses and make money from it, how foolish.

[Classact]

The voters that put those representatives in power deserve the tax plus some.

[Little-Acorn]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,2637442.story

At stake is a plan supported by Democrats and Schwarzenegger, a GOP moderate, that calls for a 1 cent increase in the sales tax, a 12-cents-per-gallon gas tax boost and hikes in vehicle license fees and the personal income tax.

Would you look at that? There are actually people in our state capital, right now, who believe we aren't paying enough for gasoline.

Actually, the voters who put the Republicans into power, who are resisting passage of these tax increases, deserve to NOT have to pay the tax.

Secret ballot is always a good idea, and is the way elections should always be run. Of course, they have the downside of concealing who voted for certain policies... or for the people who support those policies. With such a clear division between parties as this issue has, it would be far more just, if people who voted for Democrats had to pay the increased taxes, while people who voted for Republicans are exempt.