John Myers is reporting that Fabian Nunez doesn’t expect a budget deal tomorrow:

Nunez now says, barring a late breaking deal with Republicans, he will not bring the new state budget up on the Assembly floor. That would result in the 20th straight year of no new budget by the state constitutional deadline of June 15.

In a briefing with reporters, Speaker Nunez essentially accused Republicans of trying to find something they don’t like in the conference committee’s $101 billion dollar spending plan for 2006-07. “No one can say this is not a responsible budget,” he said.

Republicans, meantime, say they still think the proposal doesn’t use enough of the state’s unexpected revenues to pay down debt. But while they maintain that’s the key sticking point, they are also balking at Democratic plans to expand health care coverage for children… coverage that would also include children who are in California without legal status.(Capital Notes 6/14/06)

Damn those kids for getting sick!  Who do they think they are thinking that they are worthy of medical care!  I’ve never quite understood this.  Can it really be that they are so cruel as to want to block children from receiving medical care?  It just boggles my mind.  But I appreciate the work that the Leadership (the Dem leadership that is) to get this deal done. 

The Dems have bent over backwards to get a budget that is best for the majority of Californians.  That’s what you have to do with a budget.  But because of the god-awful 2/3 rule we have to beg and plead for a few GOP votes.  And they know how to use that veto.  They wield it as a club with more skill than Captain Caveman (and that’s hard to do!).  And so we go on, compromising what the people of California really want.  But, that’s the system we’ve got, so hopefully Fabian and the gang can get something before June 30 and avoid the anticipation notes.  Boy would that be nice.

From Dan Weintraub’s California Insider, a portion of Moody’s report describing the increase of California’s bond rating to A1:

California’s rating remains low compared to other states due to its ongoing fiscal challenges. The most immediate challenge is the state’s stubborn structural budget gap. Although moderate in size on its face — at less than 4% in the fiscal 2007 budget proposal — the gap remains a concern for three reasons: (i) its persistence after several years of good economic performance; (ii) the state’s still relatively narrow budget reserves; and (iii) the state’s high degree of reliance on tax revenue from volatile sources such as corporate net income, capital gains, exercised stock options, and high-income taxpayers generally. Although the conditions do not appear to be in place for a sharp high-end income decline in the near-term, this represents a significant area of potential exposure for the state. Any significant revenue underperformance in the near term would directly lead to a swelling of the structural imbalance and cause difficult budgeting challenges.(California Insider 5/22/06)

The upgrade, along with the similar move by Standard and Poor’s, will make the bonds substantially cheaper.  For a quick history of our credit rating, see the Treasurer’s website.  This is a really great thing for the state, it will save us millions of dollars on both outstanding and upcoming bond issuances.  However, the cynicism showed is probably something that should be taken to heart by those in Sacramento.  The windfall is not something that we should be counting on next year.  We still have yet to really fix the structural deficit. 

And the phrase “difficult budgeting challenges”, that’s a laugher huh?  Every year has difficult budgetary challenges.  Every year we hash out some sort of bizarre plan that makes nobody happy, but is required by the damn supermajority rules.  If push comes to shove and there is a real revenue crunch we end up imploding (see: Davis, Gray).

In the past we sought to use the extra revenue in fashions that bought us peace in Sacramento.  but that’s not necessarily what we need most.  What we need most is a workable budget that kowtows to nobody, but succeeds in following a vision of long-term stability.  The windfall should be used to ensure that the state can sustain economic hardships without resorting to political rarities.

[Originally posted at Norcal Politics by Lane Schwark on October 23,2005]

The LA Times has an article today that should serve as a warning to anyone considering voting in favor of Prop 76. Entitled "Would State Budget Cap Pinch Like Colorado’s?", the article looks at how a similar cap in imposed in Colorado 13 years ago has "strangled" that state’s government. The Republican Governor and even the Chamber of Commerce want the cap lifted for five years so they can catch up.

The problem: Colorado’s spending controls appear to have worked too well. Now some of the most strident fiscal conservatives in Colorado — long viewed as a model for others considering such restraints — say the cap has strangled government. There is talk of closing community colleges, privatizing the university system, releasing inmates early.

Owens said he never saw it coming.

"I don’t think it was designed to cripple government," he said of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, amendment his state’s voters approved. "This is an unintended consequence."

Continue reading [From NCP] No On Prop 76 →

California Blog Roundup for this rainy Easter Sunday. Teasers: Prop 82 con and con, Field Poll results and spin, 15% Doolittle, CA-11, rabid Republicans, some news in the campaign for Governor, some global warming, some sound principles for infrastructure, and some miscellany.

Prop 82

• Governor Schwarzenegger swings from appearing moderate by backing Proposition 82 to appeasing his corporate backers by opposing. Again, I wonder what big business doesn’t like about a tax which falls solely on high-earning individuals… What could it be? What could it be?
• Bill Bradley reports that John Burton, liberal firebrand, comes out against Prop 82 because the guarantee of universal preschool subsidizes people who don’t need the subsidy. I’m sympathetic to this criticism — you put the money where it’s needed — but one of the things we’ve learned in the United States is that once you make something into a program for the least fortunate among us, it turns into a target for the least generous among us.

Field Poll Fun

• ABC has the headlines from the big 3 NorCal papers’ Field Poll articles on Schwarzenegger. I think they can be summed up as “lukewarm”. Also, here’s the Schwarzenegger vs. Angelides / Westly summary.
• ABC again on the lead that Steve Westly has purchased himself. They note that Mark DiCamillo thinks the lead is surprisingly large. I’m not surprised by DiCamillo’s spin on that; I’ve read some comments by DiCamillo in the past suggesting strongly that DiCamillo is not politically neutral, at least in his commentary.
• Frank Russo of the California Progress Report notes that the same Field Poll suggests that the anti-immigrant nativists are a definite minority in California.

Doolittle / CA-04

• Dump Doolittle notes that John “15%” Doolittle visited his district last week, but stuck to hand-picked audiences. Doolittle will also be at a photo-op with President Bush on Earth Day. Truth is stranger than fiction. I expect the audience there will be hand-picked as well — that’s par for the course with the modern Republican Party.
• Last, Dump Doolittle has a quick blurb on the FEC reports of 15% Doolittle and his Dem challengers. As one of the commenters notes, $287K raised by 15% Doolittle last quarter means that he put just over $43K in his own pocket.

Pombo / CA-11

• Progressive 11th notes that Richard Pombo will be receiving an award from Exxon on April 25, thanking him for his service.
• Say No To Pombo has a bit more information on the FEC filings of the major Dem candidates. For some fun inside baseball, make sure to read the comments. Apparently Filson’s financial director has been less than forthcoming about his relationship to the Filson campaign.

Campaign for Governor

• California Republicans: Nothing will ever satisfy them.
• I don’t know why Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t want to be seen with George Bush. After all, he’s surrounded himself with Bush Republicans.
• Frank Russo posts on the need for the candidates for Governor to address California’s structural deficit. Twice.
• Bill Bradley thinks it’s all a muddle.
• Schwarzenegger has “released” his 2002-04 tax returns. On Good Friday. By allowing reporters to go through the returns for a few hours in a closed room.

Environment

• The California Progress Report has a guest post by Craig Noble of the NRDC on the principles that should underpin an infrastructure program that would be sustainable over the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren — those for whom we hold the present in trust.
• ABC on the Schwarzenegger’s ineffective and politically weak middle position on Global Warming.
• Uneasy Rhetoric rips Daniel Weintraub for his schmibertarian global warming denial.

This ‘n’ That

• Apparently, thinking that a line-item veto is a bad idea makes one a rabid Bolshevik. No, seriously.
• At least these Republican spouses pay each other salaries, not commissions like 15% Doolittle. Did you know there were any meaningfully pro-choice Republicans left? Me neither. Mayor Sam’s Sister City tells us that one of them is term-limited out in AD-38, and reports on the race for his seat.
• From Brian Dennert Here: this is just funny.

In which we investigate what various folks think happened to the bond measure last week.

Political Tactics

• R’s Rant says in part, the Republican demand that work performed under the bond be more easily contracted out, away from the union workers of the state.
• Gropinator points out Schwarzenegger’s failures in tactics, largely revolving around Schwarzenegger’s own Republican party. (I should give credit where credit is due: much of Gropinator’s analysis is based on Daniel Weintraub’s analysis, without the Weintraub “Dems are cynical politicos” snark.)
• John Drzal, of NorCal Progressive, notes that the Republican non-negotiable demand for new dams didn’t help matters.

Structural Problems

• Here at Calitics, Brian and our learned commenters point out that California’s supermajority requirement for bonds and budgets and the Proposition 13 revenue handcuffs actually cause most of the gridlock. Schwarzenegger is not much of a leader, but Sacramento is hard to lead.
• Last, Frank Russo of California Progress Report points out that the question before the legislature wasn’t whether to approve the bond measure, but to let the voters approve it. The Republican’s refusal to do so was essentially a minority veto.

My take on it is pretty simple. The Republicans in California want to be the party of “tear it all down” just like the national Republicans. But since they can’t get a majority in the legislature, all they can be is the party of “no more progress, ever” by means of the supermajority requirements. Schwarzenegger is only a very little bit different. He’s a one-man party of “no progress except through Schwarzenegger”.

Last week, the Republicans in the legislature exercised their minority veto on the “except through Schwarzenegger” clause. No progress, ever. It’s that simple. And honestly, though California needs the infrastructure work badly, I can’t feel sorry for Schwarzenegger that his own party shot him down. After last year’s abusive and expensive failed hard-right Schwarzenegger power grab, this has the scent of poetic justice for Arnold.