Lawmakers take vacation, pay cut as budget stalls
Published: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 6:46 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 6:46 p.m.
It's summer in Sacramento and once again California faces a budget deficit — $19 billion.
And once again, Democrats and Republicans are dug into diametrically opposed solutions — raise revenues (Democrats); cut spending (Republicans).
After failing to agree on a budget by Thursday's start of the new fiscal year, the Senate and Assembly recessed for the month of July.
“It looks awful,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “When the rest of us miss deadlines there are consequences. They miss a deadline and they go on vacation.”
The chances of a budget agreement anytime soon “are about the same as Lady Gaga entering the convent,” Pitney said.
Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said he is discouraged by the Legislature's repeatedly missed deadlines.
“We're not even close to having a budget,” the second-term lawmaker said. “It could be a long, hot summer.”
The deficit is large, the choices tough “and the politics are thick,” Huffman said.
Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, blamed the budget standoff on Republican resistance to new taxes and reluctance to advance a budget proposal of their own.
“We can't get the Republicans to budge,” said Evans, who last year headed the Assembly's budget committee and is now a top-ranking leader of Assembly Democrats.
With a two-thirds vote required for budget approval, the Republicans hold a “minority veto” over the budget process, she said.
“We do not have a democracy,” she said. “It's dysfunctional by any name.”
Huffman characterized the impasse as making it “look like the Keystone cops are running the state of California.”
Pitney, a former Republican Party policy analyst, said there is intransigence on both sides of the aisle.
Democrats “aren't giving enough on spending (cuts),” Republicans won't consider taxes, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can't bridge the divide, he said.
Lawmakers are no longer getting paid and won't get a paycheck until a budget is enacted.
Evans, a former Santa Rosa city councilwoman, said she's more concerned by the governor's order to cut pay for 200,000 state employees to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour pending a budget resolution.
“He has taken state workers hostage,” Evans said. A single mother employed by an agency like the Department of Motor Vehicles would be in jeopardy of losing her home on minimum wages, Evans said.
Evans also rejected the idea of plugging a $19 billion deficit with spending cuts, saying “it can't be done.”
It would require shutting down all state universities and most prisons, or cutting off support to counties and cities — “take your pick,” Evans said.
A $19 billion cut aimed largely at social services would cost California a total of $30 billion to $40 billion, including the loss of federal subsidies, she said.
The state general fund has been slashed from $103 billion to $83 billion in less than three years, Huffman said. “There's very little slack to work with there,” he said.
Evans and Huffman are both members of the Assembly Budget Committee, but its work on the budget is done, they said.
During the July recess, lawmakers are required to be on call for a speedy return to Sacramento, if needed.
Party leaders and the governor will continue to hold meetings, Evans said.
Meanwhile, there's no need for rank-and-file lawmakers to be in the Capitol, Huffman said.
“There's nothing to do,” he said.
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