Everyone get out their pencils and take some notes. Here's what's going on at the State Capitol this afternoon. The liberal Democrats are putting up their own budget revisions in the form of a package made up of a half-dozen or so bills.
Make no mistake about it, the package up for votes today represents no negotiation, no concessions, and no meeting of the minds. Once again the Democrats are trying to push more taxes on Californians – around $8 billion worth (just what our fragile economy needs — not!). The Democrats also put up some cuts — but it is almost impossible for this lay person to sort out potential real cuts from what appears to be a lot of accounting gimmickry (this from the people who call increasing spending less than they desire a “cut”).
Absent of course is the one item that Republicans have made clear is their Omaha Beach — a real spending cap measure to place before voters.
Look for the whole package to go down today without one Republican vote (even the cuts offered up are tied legislatively to the tax increases). As for the Democrats — let's see what some of them do… Especially Senator Lou Correa who campaigned for office on a platform of opposing new taxes, or Assemblywoman Nicole Parra who has said that without a water-fix, she isn't a vote for more budget madness…
When the dust settles from today's collosal waste of time, maybe some real discussions will take place, centered around a permanent fix to the chronic overspending that has brought us to this point…