"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to forge a path out of the state's financial mess Wednesday by offering concessions to both Democrats, who are demanding that schools and other services not be cut, and Republicans disdainful of new taxes," writes Evan Halper and Patrick McGreevy in the Times.
"Both sides immediately declared that they wanted little
to do with the governor's budget proposal, suggesting that Sacramento is in
for another long, unproductive summer.
"The $144.4-billion spending plan would restore $1.8 billion for schools while making deep cuts in welfare
and healthcare for the infirm, legal immigrants and
impoverished parents."
We like to call those the "non-voters."
"It would steer an $828-million windfall of gas tax revenue -- the result of soaring prices at the pump -- away from public transportation programs and into
patching California's $15.2-billion budget gap.
"The challenge that the governor and lawmakers face
is daunting. The state has dropped $6 billion further into the red since January, when California
was already struggling financially.
"The centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's budget is a novel plan to ask voters for permission
to borrow $15 billion from Wall Street against future earnings of
the state lottery, and to temporarily raise the state
portion of sales taxes -- now 6.25% -- by 1 percentage point if voters reject the proposal in
November.
"As the deficit grew these past few months, I knew that
we could not solve this crisis by cuts alone," the governor said in presenting his proposals. 'We had to get creative.'
"But state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) called the revised budget 'beneath a governor of this great state. It's telling our citizens: This is it. Our best years are behind us.'"
Would those be the Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, or the Gray Davis years?
"Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis called the sales tax idea -- a linchpin of the governor's plan -- 'a deal-killer.'"
Howie, I'll open some more briefcases!
For California schools, the news wasn't great, but could have been a whole lot worse, reports the Contra Costa Times' Shirley Dang.
"State and
local education leaders were relieved and wary Wednesday
when schools
seemingly escaped serious harm in the governor's proposed budget.
After
vociferous parent and teacher protests statewide, Gov.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger dropped his controversial threat to
suspend Proposition
98, the state's guarantee for education funding.
"'We're glad he
listened to us,' said Eric Heins, a Pittsburg teacher and board member
of the California Teachers Association, which represents
340,000
members. 'It's certainly a step in the right direction. However,
there's still going to be some cuts.'
"Under the governor's
revised budget, school districts would not receive
extra money to pay
for rising costs in utilities or employee compensation,
so districts
may need to slash services to meet those fiscal demands.
"In addition, funding for special programs such as the
arts and class size reduction are slated to take a
hit."
George Skelton writes that budget shows that the governor has learned a few lessons .
"In Arnold Schwarzenegger's continuing education as governor, he presumably now
has learned three lessons:
"Lesson No. 1: Never say 'never,' as in 'Read my lips . . .'
"Lesson No. 2: Don't be afraid to flip-flop in an emergency, especially when you're not running for reelection."
(Lesson 2.5...if you're going to cut, hit the non-voters...)
"Lesson No. 3: Close your ears to the simplistic mantra, "We don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem." Most of all, don't parrot the chant. You may wind up eating your words.
"At lunchtime Wednesday, unveiling his revised state
budget proposal, Schwarzenegger performed a flip-flop and ate his words."
Steve Wiegand is not an optimist .
"There may be some consolation in the thought that Schwarzenegger's proposal is probably deader than that filly in this
year's Kentucky Derby.
"Democratic legislators won't like the social service cuts; Republican legislators won't like the sales tax trigger; Indian casino tribes won't like the lottery expansion.
"And ain't no one going to like spending all summer trying to
revise this revision."
And Dan Weintraub seems fundamentally disappointed, if not disgusted .
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has now abandoned his goal of fixing the problem that led to his historic election in 2003. With the revised budget proposal he released Wednesday, the governor has effectively conceded that California's era of perpetual budget deficits will not end on his watch.
"Schwarzenegger long ago began losing his chance to fulfill his administration's original reason for being. The latest wrinkle just makes it official.
"Schwarzenegger still had a chance to finish the job he was elected to do before his second term ends in January 2011. But this week's proposal amounts to a surrender to the forces he was elected to confront. He can't, or won't, do what's necessary to right the ship.The governor's failure is more than just a numbers game. It reflects his – and the state's – refusal to face reality.
Capitol Weekly's John Howard reports on another big telecommunications bill quietly winding its way through the Legislature .
"An attempt sponsored by Verizon to cut into the state Public Utilities Commission’s power over telephone-company mergers is drawing fire from unlikely bedfellows—the PUC itself and an array of consumer groups. The effort, which partisans describe as a related piece of California’s 2-year-old deregulation of the telephone industry, is the second of two high-stakes measures sought by telephone companies this year worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The latest bill is the most important communications
deregulation bill to go before lawmakers since the
cable deregulation bill authored by former Assembly
Speaker Fabian Núñez in 2006. The freeze on phone rates contained in that bill
expires in January.
"Like the Núñez bill, the new legislation, by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, is supported by a number of grass-roots community and civil rights groups, including the NAACP, some of whom have received financial support from Verizon’s charitable foundation. Thus far, the bill has received limited public attention."
"At issue is a 19-year-old law that requires the California PUC to review and approve telephone-company mergers. In the case of big mergers, those worth $500 million or more, the PUC must make sure that at least half of the merger benefits go to ratepayers, that competition remains robust and that the merger is in the public interest. The Padilla bill, SB 1389, eliminates those rules.
"More than four years after San Francisco defied state marriage laws by allowing nearly 4,000 same-sex couples to wed at City Hall, the state Supreme Court is set to decide today whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California ," writes Bob Egelko in the Chron.
"But the decision, due at 10 a.m., may not be the last word. Conservative religious
organizations have submitted more than 1.1 million signatures for an initiative that would amend
the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. If at least 694,354 signatures are found to be valid, a tally that is
due by mid-June, the measure would go on the November ballot and,
if approved by voters, would override any court ruling
in favor of same-sex marriage.
"Californians have already voted once, in 2000, to reaffirm the 1977 state law that defines marriage as the union of a
man and a woman. The 2000 initiative, Proposition 22, was not a constitutional amendment."
"California's 670,000 public university students got a double-barreled blast of bad news Wednesday when the governing boards for both the UC and the California State University systems took steps to raise tuition - for the sixth time in seven years," reports Tanya Schevitz in the Chron."
Speaking of the non-voters...
"In Los Angeles, where the UC Board of Regents was meeting
on the UCLA campus, 16 students were arrested for unruly behavior after a
regents committee voted to impose a 7.4 percent tuition increase for the next school year.
That would raise the annual cost for UC undergraduates
from $6,571 to $7,126. The full Board of Regents is expected to ratify the
committee vote today.
"Up the road at the CSU headquarters in Long Beach,
the Board of Trustees took similar action, voting 15-3 to impose a 10 percent tuition increase on its 450,000 students this fall. That would push annual undergraduate
tuition from $2,772 to $3,048.
"The two institutions began raising tuition in 2002-03 and have done so every year since except in 2006-07, when an 8 percent increase approved by both boards was rescinded
after the Legislature stepped in with additional state
funding."
CW's Malcolm Maclachlan reports on the legislative fight over your right to drink free booze in public.
"The alcohol industry is seeking to loosen restrictions around free tastings and other promotions. Industry critics argue that their ultimate goal isn't just to promote their wares in upscale bars and liquor stores but in grocery stores and family restaurants.
"While there are several alcohol-related bills pending in the legislature, much of the focus is on a pair of bills by Assemblyman George Plescia, R-San Diego. His AB 2613 would allow makers of distilled spirits-i.e. liquor-to offer tastings similar to those done by beer and wine makers across a range of retail environments. AB 2294 would allows alcohol makers or distillers to give signs, including televisions, to establishments that sell alcohol, for promotional purposes.
"According to amendments added in order to get the bill through the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee, AB 2613 would limit these tastings to stores of at least 25,000 square feet that make at least 70 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales."
In other vice news, Maclachlan looks at whether a newly proposed porn tax would drive the state's porn industry away.
"AB 2914 is the third attempt by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, to impose a tax on adult businesses. Reached on Wednesday, Calderon said that his office is looking to clarify the language. But the final language will keep a 25 percent tax on both the sale and production of adult materials, he said. The total tax on any one DVD or magazine, he said, would be capped at 50 percent.
"By most estimates, around 90 percent of the primary domestic production of adult entertainment—that is, the shooting of videos and photos—occurs in California, most of that in a small portion of the Los Angeles area. Nationally, adult businesses—from videos to strip clubs to adult toys—bring in at least $10 billion a year, according to Forester Research.
“'I’m sure it would take a month or two,' said Larry Kaplan, executive director of the Association
of Club Executives of California, a trade group representing
California’s 176 strip clubs. 'I believe the author of the bill has grossly underestimated
the options of the industry. He thinks he’s got a captive audience that will accept this pact.'
"A key CalPERS committee on Wednesday recommended that the massive pension and health fund not raise the cost of PPO premiums for state workers in 2009. In one case, they even proposed decreasing them by 3 percent," writes Jon Ortiz in the Bee.
"The CalPERS' Board of Administration is expected to approve the
recommendations today.
"CalPERS spends about $5 billion annually to cover 1.2 million active and retired public workers and their
family members. About 25 percent belong to one of its PPO plans.
"Health maintenance organization premiums are not on
this month's CalPERS agenda. The board will issue those rates
at its June meeting. The vast majority of CalPERS members
belong to HMOs."
We're counting on state employees to use the savings to buy more lottery tickets.
Capitol Weekly's John Howard reports on the collective bargaining process that all state unions must go through. "Unions representing thousands of state employees have begun hammering out labor contracts: The state has presented its initial proposals, the unions are poised to respond and both sides are preparing for the first round of face-to-face negotiations.
"One of the state’s 21 bargaining groups, the California Highway Patrol,
has negotiated a new agreement and 18 others are in the midst of doing so. The two remaining
groups, the correctional officers and the state’s attorneys, are working with expired contracts.
"The state has about 189,000 rank-and-file employees covered by union contracts or about 235,000 employees when supervisors, managers and exempt employees—typically political appointees—are included. When higher education, judiciary and legislative employees are tallied, the number totals about 340,000.
"The contracts vary in length, but the beginning of
the fiscal, July 1, is often viewed as target for the effective date
of new contracts because it coincides with the latest
state budget—a document that is often approved, despite constitutional
requirements, after the deadline.
"The prison officers’ agreement is projected at $240 million for the 2008-09 fiscal year, a figure that could change depending on the strength of final state budget, which has not yet been approved. In 2007-08, the price tag was about $260 million.
“'We are in a holding pattern to see what the Legislature
is going to do to approve the funding elements of our
terms and conditions of the contract,' said Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for the Department
of Personnel Administration, which represents the Schwarzenegger
administration.
And keepers of Capitol Park may want to grab the phone number of a Ukranian sculptor, who is working on a little public art in the central Ukranian town of Komsomolsk. The town, "is to erect a monument to a 'drunken pig ,' the national UNIAN news agency reported on Thursday.
The monument, which portrays a pig lying on its belly with its snout in a trough, will be installed near a local cafe.
"This monument symbolizes those people who make pigs of themselves by drinking far too much," said Oleg Ryabo, the local sculptor responsible."
Couldn't you just see one mounted right outside the patio at Chops?