Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez acknowledged the obvious today - that the Legislature will not meet next Tuesday's constitutional deadline for enacting a 2010-11 state budget.
Pérez told reporters at a news conference in which he was touting his "California Jobs Budget" that he expects a two-house budget conference committee to continue its once-through perusal of the budget into next week and then begin focusing on the most contentious issues of spending cuts and taxes.
The June 15 deadline is almost never met and it's almost as rare for a new budget to be in place when the new fiscal year begins on July 1. The political wrangling over the budget has gone as late as September in the past and everyone in the Capitol expects a lengthy stalemate this year as well.
Controller John Chiang has warned that if the budget is still unsettled by August, the state will run short of cash and may have to resort to IOUs, as it did last year, to pay its bills.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed deep slashes in health and welfare programs to close a deficit estimated at nearly $20 billion, while Democrats propose some tax increases, and Pérez is touting a complex scheme to borrow some $10 billion to ease the need for spending cuts.
The conference committee is weighing Schwarzenegger's budget along with the somewhat different Senate and Assembly versions and supposedly will settle on one version to place before both houses. Democrats can do that without Republican votes but GOP votes, plus Schwarzenegger's approval, would be needed for a final budget and they have pledged not to increase any taxes.
Schwarzenegger also has demanded public pension reforms and warned that he won't sign a budget without them. But Pérez said any pension changes should be negotiated with public worker unions and delaying a budget on the pension issue "would be a disaster for the economy."
Latest posts:
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.