It looks like a battle of revenue forecasts is shaping up between Governor Jerry Brown and Mac Taylor, the state’s Legislative Analyst.
Controller John Chiang looks to be a major budget player once again.
Divide number one between the Governor and LAO is over the estimated tax revenues that would come into the state if Brown’s proposal to increase the state’s income and sales taxes makes the ballot and is passed by voters in November. Brown says that these tax increases would result in $6.9 billion in additional revenues. The LAO however projects revenues from those potential higher taxes at $4.8 billion — over $2 billion less than Brown (and that is just for the first year). (Read the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert story on this $2.1 billion divide here.)
The second divide between Brown and Taylor appeared today, when Taylor issued projections for capital gains for Californians at $62 billion — Governor Brown says that capital gains will be $96 billion. That is a large $34 billion difference of opinion, which translates to $3 billion less in tax revenue to the state under the Taylor estimate. (Read the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert story on this $3 billion divide here.)
Because of these divides, the Legislative Analyst basically says that if the budget proposed by Governor Brown were approved, as is, by the legislature, it would be out of balance by well over $5 billion.
So the immediate question as the Governor and Legislative Analyst spar over revenue assumptions is simply — what does Controller Chiang think? It would probably be fairly instructive to legislators if Chiang were to weigh in on what is a stunning differential between the revenue assumptions of the Department of Finance and those of the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
January 11th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
How can you lead when even your fellow managers do not believe what you say, propose, do…..
Passing bogus budgets is shameful and enlightening about the character and statesmanship of the majority party.
Some are not surprised….but come on….when does a leader emerge Californians can believe!!!
January 25th, 2012 at 7:19 am
[…] Steinberg and Perez can try to “spin” their lawsuit (which will be funded through out taxpayer dollars, I must point out), but the public is going to see this for what it is — a foreshadowing of plans by legislative Democrats to try to use more gimmicks and smoke and mirrors to pass a budget that does not true up state spending to available tax revenues. There is already an over-$5 billion “difference of opinion” between Governor Brown and the state’s independent Legislative Analyst over projected tax revenues for the next budget year, and no doubt Steinberg and Perez (propped up by their public employee union boss benefactors) do not want the Controller weighing in (I wrote about that potential here). […]