Assembly Republicans Offer a Budget Plan Without “Tax Increases”

(Editor’s Note: Normally, news would seem to be if they offered a spending plan with tax increases. However…)

Breaking with past practice, Assembly Republicans offered their own budget solution that proposes to protect public school funding at funding for local law enforcement.

The seven-page summary comes five days before Gov. Jerry Brown issues has revised sending plan.

In the past, Republicans periodically offered their own budget solutions but attacks by  Democrats  caused them to abandon the practice for several years.

Nor did the current proposal come without complaint. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, called it a “pixie dust” proposal:

“This plan is not a solution.  It’s a recipe for continued failure, jam-packed with gimmicks, one-time solutions and illusory savings.,” Lockyer said in a statement.

“Instead of offering a long-term solution that gets California back on firm fiscal footing, this plan essentially endorses the irresponsible practices that have shoved our state deeper and deeper into a fiscal hole and subjected us to worldwide ridicule.

“The folks who offer this plan pretend our longer-term budget gaps don’t exist.  Or maybe they think Tinkerbell will fly in and make the shortfalls vanish with pixie dust.”

Republicans say the plan protects their priorities — both public schools and state universities and state subsidies to local law enforcement agencies.

Both the plan and Republican press releases on the topic stress that point.

“I have long said that a quality education for the children of this state is a critical building block to fostering a vibrant and healthy economy.  In addition, communities cannot thrive and business cannot grow and create jobs in an unsafe environment.,” said Senate GOP Leader Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga of the Assembly proposal.

The Assembly Republican plan predicts that in the fiscal year beginning July 1, there will be an additional $2.5 billion in revenue — the same higher-than-expected amount the GOP says  has been received by the state this year.

“The increased revenues reflect the fact that revenues exceeded expectations (this year) and that important economic indicators, such as the personal income tax withholding, suggest that there will be increased revenues in (the new fiscal year),” the GOP proposal says.

Lockyer takes a different view:

“Even assuming the additional revenues they project materialize in the budget year, most are likely to disappear after that.  And we’ve got more than $30 billion in budget borrowing and unfunded liabilities on our ledger.”

The plan offers 17 proposed reductions (See Below) of which the biggest is a 10 percent reduction in state employer costs for a savings of $1.1 billion.

“The Democrat budget does not control em[lppoyee costs. Instead, they add 1,000 new employees,” the plan claims.

 

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