This Week Inside The Capitol

This morning, Governor Jerry Brown is expected to release his revised budget blueprint. Known as the “May Revise,” this proposal adjusts his original proposal – released in January – based on actual state tax income. (Watch the governor’s budget press conference live on his Web site or on the California Channel.)

Thursday, Republican legislators released their own proposal for dealing with California’s deficit. Taking advantage of reported increased revenues, their plan would not cut funding for education, but would cut the pay of state employees, reduce social services, and alternatively utilize initiative-designated funds for mental health and childhood programs. 

Meanwhile, the governor and his fellow Democrats insist on raising taxes. While the governor remains committed to placing these tax extensions on the ballot, other Democrats and their union allies believe taxes must be raised with or without a vote of the people. In a Sacramento radio interview last week, Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said he was confident they’d have a “handshake deal” to put taxes on the ballot by June 15, but he insisted they needed to raise taxes one way or another – even if it meant locking the Senate doors. 

Steinberg’s “raise taxes anyway possible” mentality is embodied in SB 653, which would allow counties and school districts to raise taxes of their own at the local level. If he and Democrat leaders cannot find two Republicans in each house to support raising state taxes, Steinberg says, his bill “is one of the very few tools left to fund education and public safety.” It could be passed with a simple majority. In fact, it passed the Senate Government and Finance Committee with a party-line vote and is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee today. (Read yesterday’s editorial in the Sacramento Bee for more on Steinberg’s plans and the budget situation.)