On
the last day of the just-completed fiscal year, the Assembly Speaker and Senate
President Pro Tem announced agreement on what
they call a unified Democratic budget "framework" that purports
to reconcile their different approaches and "signals the next step of
negotiations" with the Governor.
It
does no such thing.
But
don’t take my word for it; read the previously-confidential paper here.
You will find that this is not a document that anyone could negotiate from.
In
fact, the only "work" the document "frames" is the
caucuses’ commitment to saving government jobs at any cost.
While
the position paper makes no mention of the Speaker’s elaborate (and
illegal) borrowing plan, it insists more "one time solutions" –
a.k.a. borrowing – will be required.
The
paper gives no ground on government growth, and indeed calls for more spending
on schools, health and welfare programs and state employee compensation.
It
calls for more taxes, in particular on California-only oil production, reneges
on the economic recovery tax incentives adopted as part of earlier budget
deals, and even suggests that the temporary increase in tax rates be continued
beyond their scheduled expiration. Indeed, the seriousness of the position
paper can be measured by their rhetoric on taxes: dubbing this new production
tax a "loophole closing" is on par with calling the absence of
income and property taxes in Texas and Alaska "loopholes."
But
none of these "Democratic Principles" are surprising or even
newsworthy. What is astonishing is their insistence that this paper provides a
path to "finalizing the budget." The Governor’s May Budget Revision,
in all its gruesome specificity, has been on the table since, well, May. The
Democrats’ unified response is as relevant to a Big 5 meeting as ping
pong balls are to Wimbledon.
Negotiations
that begin after the commencement of the new fiscal year should be serious and
start in the realm of reality – not from where one wishes we could be. The
Governor should return this position paper unopened.