What’s Don Perata’s answer for Republican opposition to a temporary sales tax increase – just make the tax increase permanent!
Sacramento’s budget gridlock still seemingly has no end in sight, with the budget now 60 days overdue. The compromise proposal of a temporary sales tax that Governor Schwarzenegger put forth last week has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle, but at the very least has provided a starting point for some type of compromise between the tax-and-spend philosophy of the Democrats and the Republicans’ concern that tax increases would only further harm California’s struggling economy.
I find it unlikely, however, that ‘compromise’ is a part of Perata’s vocabulary. His attempt to force permanence upon the Governor’s proposed tax increase shows about as much maturity as Karen Bass shoving Nicole Parra into a closet across the street.
While it already seemed unlikely that the ongoing budget battle was slated to make any progress in the near future, Perata’s clear willingness to move even further away from any viable agreement shows exactly why problems like this occur in the first place.
George Skelton might have said it best in his column in yesterday’s LA Times:
Republicans pledge not to raise taxes. Democrats promise a laundry list of social programs the state can’t afford.
Then they come to Sacramento and can’t compromise.