Speaker: Governor's budget a product of 'right-wing think tanks'

By: TOM CHORNEAU - Associated Press | Thursday, January 20, 2005 9:43 PM PST ∞

SACRAMENTO -- Setting the stage for a bruising budget fight this year, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez on Thursday called the governor's proposed spending plan an "attack on middle-class values" that was built on ideas from "right-wing think tanks."

Nunez, D-Los Angeles, told reporters at a Capitol press conference that the Legislature's Democratic majority would offer their own budget plan in the coming months that he said would better protect the state's priorities -- especially education.

"I will not support a budget that starves Californians of the services they depend on and the services that make us a first-class state," Nunez said.

The Speaker's comments followed a statewide tour of newspaper editorial boards by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during the past week in which he promoted his budget plan.

The governor's $111.7 billion budget contains no new taxes but relies heavily on borrowing and hard spending limits to close an $8.6 billion shortfall.

Schwarzenegger dismissed the notion of raising taxes in a meeting on Tuesday and instead said lawmakers should concentrate on "starving the public sector" and avoid feeding "the monster" of government.

Nunez argued that government services -- such as law enforcement and schools -- are not a monster and do not need to be starved.

H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the governor's Finance Department, said Schwarzenegger's budget provides "common sense" solutions for the state's ongoing spending problems. He dismissed criticism of some of the ideas in the plan as coming from partisan sources -- including pension reforms, one proposal that Nunez cited as coming from the right wing.

The governor's budget would spend $6.4 billion more than last year but would also impose restrictions on the rate of growth of key programs -- such as education and public health -- that critics say will result in significant service reductions.

Schwarzenegger also plans to balance his budget with more than $4 billion in borrowing, including $1.6 billion in bonds from the pool of $15 billion in bonds that voters approved last March. The governor would also take about $2.3 billion in tax money that schools have claimed under a voter-approved minimum funding guarantee.

The administration would also hit public health and welfare programs as well as shifting $1.3 billion in tax money earmarked for transportation programs to plug other holes.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst has pointed out that while the governor's plan is balanced and uses no accounting gimmicks to disguise spending problems -- which have been used in the past -- the proposal does little to solve the structural spending problem. Budget analysts said that even if the Legislature adopts the governor's plan, the state still faces a new deficit of $10 billion in 2006-2007.

Toward that end, however, Schwarzenegger has proposed a constitutional spending cap that he wants to put before voters in a special election later this year. The governor has also said he wants voters to consider taking authority for drawing legislative districts away from lawmakers and giving it to a commission of retired judges.

Nunez said Democrats may have to put their own initiatives on the ballot, too, which was not in the state's best interests.

"We have no choice but to think about what to put on the ballot," Nunez said. "Ultimately what we end up doing is sacrificing democracy and making voters pay the consequences."

Democrats have also criticized the governor for not doing enough to get federal money. Nunez said he spoke Thursday with Schwarzenegger, who was in Washington, D.C. for President Bush's inauguration and to meet with members of Congress about increasing their support of California.

Palmer said later the governor is trying to set up a meeting in Washington between the entire California Congressional delegation and the state's four legislative leaders on the issue.

On the Net:

http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/defaulttext.asp

California Assembly

http://www.dof.ca.gov/

Governor's Department of Finance

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