Let California voters decide on pensions, spending
This perspective on the California Budget, written by Debra Saunders, was published today in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In Sacramento, the knee-jerk response to any crisis is to blame the Republicans. But if Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders can’t cut a deal to win the two GOP votes in the Assembly and two in the Senate needed to qualify Brown’s tax-increase extension for the June ballot, Democrats must take their share of responsibility for fudging a deal.
First, there’s the original sin: Brown’s decision to stake his budget package on a do-over ballot measure that voters rejected by a 2-1 margin in 2009. Brown knew when he plotted this strategy that it would be career suicide for Republicans to vote for the sort of tax increases that he himself dared not advocate when he ran for governor.
Now the Dems have to give the GOP something in return.
Tax or spend? The final chapter
This perspective on the California Budget, written by Debra Saunders, was published today in the San Francisco Chronicle.
I am reluctant to join the chorus of scolds who chide Republicans for opposing Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to put a tax-increase extension on a special election ballot in June.
But I will join the chorus, though first I must point out that GOP Assembly members and senators didn’t spend California to the brink of ruin. The Democrats and nominally Republican former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger share that honor.
I also am reluctant to blame the GOP because I believe that the necessary two GOP votes from both the Assembly and Senate will materialize.
Meg is Right on Prop 23
Read full article here.
I saw that Jerry Brown on Tuesday night when he said that he would oppose suspending AB32, the state greenhouse-gas law about to go into effect. "You create uncertainty," Brown explained. "You create doubt for investors."
I think Whitman had it right when she argued for a suspension of the measure in light of the state’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate. Whitman explained, "It’s not fair to the employees in manufacturing, trucking, packaging, all the other industries, to drive those jobs out of state." Amen.