"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday
turned up pressure on state lawmakers for spending cuts in next year's state budget after May tax revenue reports revealed a $764 million shortfall for the current fiscal year," writes Peter Hecht in the Bee.
"The governor recently announced that his 2007-08 budget proposal
would leave the state with a $1.4 billion structural deficit -- even if lawmakers approve his requested cuts in transportation funding, welfare and other programs.
"Thursday, the governor's finance department reported that tax revenues the state has received to date this fiscal year were below expectations.
"Officials said much of the shortfall was due to the fact California
paid out $160 million more than expected in state income tax refunds in May and also took in $377 million less than expected in income tax payments. Meanwhile, the state reported a $227 million shortfall in general tax revenues."
John "Laird, chairman of the legislative budget conference committee, said lawmakers 'are making some hard choices' to pass a budget that 'doesn't do any new programs and holds the line on existing spending.'"
Meanwhile, a big new program emerged from both houses yesterday. The LAT's Jordan Rau reports: "The Legislature
gave initial approval Thursday to a Democratic plan for overhauling healthcare, despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's insistence on bipartisan cooperation and the unified resistance of his fellow Republicans.
The Senate and Assembly passed -- without a single Republican vote -- bills that would require businesses to spend 7.5% of their payrolls on employee healthcare. Democratic leaders said they would negotiate with Schwarzenegger and the business and healthcare lobbies in hopes of reaching a deal by the session's end in mid-September.
"But Thursday's debates in the Capitol revealed a chasm just as wide as it was in January, if not wider.
"And Schwarzenegger's proposal to achieve medical coverage for all Californians, outlined in January, received another setback.
The nonpartisan legislative counsel's office, which advises lawmakers in both parties, concluded that a core element of Schwarzenegger's plan -- the collection of $3.5 billion from doctors and hospitals every year -- would be a tax, not a fee as the governor has steadfastly maintained.
"
That means approval by two-thirds of lawmakers would be needed for it to pass -- not a simple majority, as fees require. Republican votes would be necessary. And the governor vowed during his reelection campaign that he would not raise taxes."
Legislative counsel is so off message...
But if the Senate has it's way,
perhaps the state will be rolling in cash from stem cell research, reports Capitol Weekly's Malcolm Maclachlan. "The Senate approved a bill Wednesday calling for the state of
California to
receive guaranteed benefits from its $3 billion stem cell investment. SB 771 passed on a 38-0 vote and now heads for the Assembly.
"The bill follows several unsuccessful attempts to mandate financial benefits from Proposition 71, which voters passed by a wide margin in 2004. It also comes as watchdog groups are charging that supporters of Prop. 71 have backed off of initial rosy promises of financial royalties to the state."
We'll be holding our breath...
Meanwhile, with revenues down, there
appears to be renewed interest by Democrats to move the tribal compacts, reports the U-T's James Sweeney. "Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles,
has told organized labor it will not get what it wants in the agreements and is discussing revisions on other issues that could be made without renegotiating the compacts, lawmakers and knowledgeable sources said," reports James Sweeney in the Union-Tribune.
"That has spurred intense negotiations over the past week aimed at breaking the long impasse. The Pechanga tribe near Temecula was on the brink of a deal, although an aide to the speaker said nothing had been finalized.
"'It's like any legislative discussion,' said
Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Nunez. '
They're close. Sometimes you move forward, sometimes you move back. But they're making progress.'"
Call us when they do the hokey pokey and they turn themselves around, because that's what it's all about.
"Nunez and Assemblyman
Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat who is the speaker's point man on the compacts, have been in talks with the tribes for months. But the negotiations took off after Nunez invited leaders of four of the tribes to lunch in his office Monday.
"'We're talking to see what we can work out,'
Danny Tucker, chairman of the Sycuan band near El Cajon, said afterward."
"An
effort to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California this year ended Thursday as Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nunez abandoned a four-month push to sway fellow Democrats on the emotional issue.
"Nunez said he was dropping his bid just hours before a legislative deadline because the issue had been 'demonized by the religious right.'
"Supporters said their California Compassionate Choices Act would provide an important option for the terminally ill in pain. But foes had argued it could become a route for the uninsured to avoid financially burdening relatives.
"Assemblyman
Lloyd Levine, the Van Nuys Democrats who co-authored the measure, said he shelved the bill until next year, the second year of the current two-year legislative session, because supporters lacked the 41 votes needed among the Assembly's 48 Democrats."
And, Levine's lightbulb bill got shelved!
In
other developments in the sausage factory, "lawmakers
defeated a bill to tax those who buy gas guzzlers. They
approved measures to ban smoking in cars carrying minors, allow the release of incapacitated inmates, eliminate trans fats from school cafeterias and restaurants, and label fruity alcoholic drinks.
"Assemblyman
Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City) failed to muster more than 35 of the 41 votes needed to pass AB 493, a bill that would have taxed buyers of muscle cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and other big gasoline users up to $2,500. The money would have been used to cut the cost of hybrids and other more fuel-efficient vehicles.
"Ruskin argued that his bill would "put more clean cars within the reach of middle-class families and disadvantaged families." But Republicans called it market interference.
"'We should not be in the business of picking market winners and losers,' said Assemblyman
Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine).'"
Leave that to the
federal government.
And from our
My God! They Killed Wee Wee Files, A man accused of fatally shooting a beloved pet goose named Wee Wee faces three misdemeanor charges. The Yuba County District Attorney's office charged David Gregory Davis, 48, of Marysville, with hunting without a license, waste of game and overlimit of geese for shooting the Canada goose out of season.
"Wee Wee might have appeared no different than any other Canada goose to the average hunter, but he was a family pet to Todd Hulsey and Sharri Neel and their children, as well as a friend to their neighbors.
"
Sharri Neel had even posted a sign along a private road adjoining a nearby rice field that said, '
Please Don't Shoot The Pet Goose.'"
Lotta good that did...
