Source:
Ca. Progress ReportCalifornia Assembly Passes State Budget with Republicans Getting $1.2 Billion Taken From Transit, 4 Month Delay in COLA for Disabled and Seniors, Cut in Prop 36 Drug Treatment Funds
*Tax Giveaways to Large Businesses Also Pass Assembly in Separate Bill Not Tied to Budget Bill
*Perata Blasts Tax Credits; Senate Republicans May Have "Unit Rule" to Oppose Unless Majority of Them Agree to Support
The California Assembly finished its work a couple of hours before the sun rose this morning and passed a revised budget bill by a vote of 56 to 23. Assembly Republicans got about $1.4 billion of the $2 billion in cuts they demanded, and it is fair to say that this budget passed largely on the backs of public transit and with a four month delay of cost of living increases for the aged, blind, and disabled. Assembly Democrats did manage to save kindergarten to 12th grade education from cuts Assembly Republicans had demanded.
A separate bill containing a package of 5 tax credits, some of them directed to large businesses, not tied specifically to the state budget, also passed on a 51-19 vote and was apparently a sweetener to the deal required to get Republicans to vote for the budget. There also are changes to the way that national corporations' tax obligations are computed. It is expected to cost $600 million a year, and unless there is sunset language which has not been discussed, this will continue indefinitely unless a two-thirds majority backfills this amount at some point in the future. This is not likely.
All of this faces an uncertain fate in the State Senate where a two-thirds vote is needed for passage. Senate President pro Tem Don Perata blasted the tax giveaways, noting that a tax credit for teachers that had been a feature of past budgets was removed.
Although Democrats have 25 of the 40 Senate seats, only two short of the 27 needed to pass a budget and therefore only two Senate Republicans are needed to accomplish this, Republican Senators apparently have made a pact with each other that unless a majority of them (8 out of 15) are willing to vote for a budget, they will withhold their votes. So much for post partisanship and any individual judgment. \
<snip>
Read more:
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_asse_19.html