{"id":9092,"date":"2009-06-10T00:54:35","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T00:54:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-06-10T00:54:35","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T00:54:35","slug":"darrell-steinbergs-budget-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/06\/10\/darrell-steinbergs-budget-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"Darrell Steinberg’s Budget Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is better than what we’ve seen before. From the SacBee:<\/a><\/p>\n

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called for using much of the state’s proposed $4.5 billion budget reserve next year to save key health, welfare and college scholarship programs.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of a rainy-day fund is to provide funds for a rainy day,” Steinberg said at a news conference. “It’s thunder and lightning in California right now.”<\/p>\n

Specifically, Steinberg proposed using reserves as an alternative to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals to eliminate the state’s CalWORKs and Healthy Families programs and to end future Cal Grant awards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steinberg also proposes to not<\/em> raid local governments, which is a very, very good move for him – not only is it bad policy but it’s bad politics, for it could do more than any other move to undermine Democratic efforts to win new seats in 2010. Steinberg also signaled openness to repealing the corporate tax giveaways in the September 2008 and February 2009 budget deals:<\/p>\n

To help make up the difference between the two plans, Steinberg would tap $3.5 billion to $4 billion of a proposed $4.5 billion reserve.<\/p>\n

If bolstering the reserve fund is necessary, Steinberg suggested revoking various corporate tax breaks approved as part of past budget negotiations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is much weaker language than is necessary – Steinberg ought to attack the tax breaks outright. Zed Hollingsworth predictably defended those tax giveaways in the article, but he is WAY out on a limb by doing so. Nobody in this state things those tax breaks are worth making the deeper cuts needed to offset their cost, and the notion that California needs a rainy day fund in the middle of a hurricane was soundly rejected on May 19.<\/p>\n

Steinberg and Bass also ought to be proposing other tax increases. Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened the door to an oil severance tax by his framing of the Tranquillon Ridge offshore oil project as necessary for the budget, and the Binder poll<\/a> laid out other taxes, including higher income taxes on the wealthy, that the public not only supports but wants.<\/p>\n

So while I am pleased to see better stuff coming out of the Democratic leadership, it’s not as strong as it needs to be. Democrats have to stop pre-compromising. Come out swinging with bold and progressive proposals. And if they have to move toward the middle, at least it would be a genuine middle, instead of the right-wing “middle” that has dominated the last few budget cycles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is better than what we’ve seen before. From the SacBee:<\/a><\/p>\n

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called for using much of the state’s proposed $4.5 billion budget reserve next year to save key health, welfare and college scholarship programs.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of a rainy-day fund is to provide funds for a rainy day,” Steinberg said at a news conference. “It’s thunder and lightning in California right now.”<\/p>\n

Specifically, Steinberg proposed using reserves as an alternative to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals to eliminate the state’s CalWORKs and Healthy Families programs and to end future Cal Grant awards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steinberg also proposes to not<\/em> raid local governments, which is a very, very good move for him – not only is it bad policy but it’s bad politics, for it could do more than any other move to undermine Democratic efforts to win new seats in 2010. Steinberg also signaled openness to repealing the corporate tax giveaways in the September 2008 and February 2009 budget deals:<\/p>\n

To help make up the difference between the two plans, Steinberg would tap $3.5 billion to $4 billion of a proposed $4.5 billion reserve.<\/p>\n

If bolstering the reserve fund is necessary, Steinberg suggested revoking various corporate tax breaks approved as part of past budget negotiations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is much weaker language than is necessary – Steinberg ought to attack the tax breaks outright. Zed Hollingsworth predictably defended those tax giveaways in the article, but he is WAY out on a limb by doing so. Nobody in this state things those tax breaks are worth making the deeper cuts needed to offset their cost, and the notion that California needs a rainy day fund in the middle of a hurricane was soundly rejected on May 19.<\/p>\n

Steinberg and Bass also ought to be proposing other tax increases. Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened the door to an oil severance tax by his framing of the Tranquillon Ridge offshore oil project as necessary for the budget, and the Binder poll<\/a> laid out other taxes, including higher income taxes on the wealthy, that the public not only supports but wants.<\/p>\n

So while I am pleased to see better stuff coming out of the Democratic leadership, it’s not as strong as it needs to be. Democrats have to stop pre-compromising. Come out swinging with bold and progressive proposals. And if they have to move toward the middle, at least it would be a genuine middle, instead of the right-wing “middle” that has dominated the last few budget cycles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2mE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}