Budget in Limbo

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

To say things are a mess in Sacramento right now is an understatement. The budget is being attacked by all sides. Usually that is an indication of a good compromise, but sometimes it leads to HillaryCare and everything goes down in flames. Here is a status update.

The Assembly passed the budget in a late night session then said it was going on recess for a month. The trouble started in the Senate before the Assembly even started. Senator Perata was not happy with a package of tax cuts that the Republicans wanted. Then the Senate Republicans started moving the goal posts. They went back to demanding even more cuts, without spelling out what they meant.

Meanwhile, advocates for the poor, elderly, education and transportation expressed their disappointment at the budget that passed the Assembly. George Skelton today went after the cuts to the poor.

Anyway, it was about the time of the wine-tasting that the legislative leaders hatched their plan to roll California's most vulnerable.OK, maybe I'm guilty of a cheap shot. But it's no more a cheap shot than picking the pockets of the poor in order to bring spending and taxes closer into balance.

The victims list includes 1.2 million impoverished aged, blind and disabled, plus 500,000 welfare families, mostly single moms with two kids.

Skelton then reminds us of the comments made by Nunez and Perata earlier on these type of cuts.

Check this Perata comment to reporters after a July 12 negotiating session with GOP leaders:

"They want us to cut in places that Democrats just didn't get elected to come up here and cut. So for any program that involves the elderly, people who are disabled, people who are mentally ill, our mantra is kind of, we're here to protect those who can't protect themselves."

Nuñez was even more adamant: "We're not going to take the canes away from the blind. We're not going to kick people out of their wheelchairs … kick poor kids into the street. We just refuse to do that under any circumstances."

Guess he was speaking literally. Could have fooled me. I and virtually everyone around the Capitol thought he was promising not to buy Republican votes with poor people's pocketbooks.

Look, they managed to restore most of the cuts that Arnold had proposed, but not all. But then they went and cut taxes, which opened them up to new criticism. This has opened them up for criticism for both their previous comments. It's hard to justify the tax cuts when they had said they were not going to cut aid to the most vulnerable and then they did just that. Then Nunez made it even worse.

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