The recalcitrant Republicans in the legislature refused repeated requests and myriad concessions from the Brown administration on such issues as pension reform, budget cuts and regulatory reform only to repeatedly refuse to place a measure asking voters to cast ballots up or down on a range of tax extensions.
The GOP has held firm to the concept that voting to allow voters to decide whether to tax themselves was a violation of Grover Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes was one and the same and therefore non-negotiable. However, now that polling shows that more than 50% of voters want to see the tax measures on the ballot, while only 46% say they would cast a ballot to extend the taxes, Republicans are relenting somewhat.
Now, that's leadership. They fought putting the measures on the ballot, but now that it looks like voters will reject them, they are finally ready to talk. Unfortunately, talk is the only thing they seem to be able to do. Further, they happen to have come to this conclusion just a week before the state constitution requires a balanced budget be adopted.
The Governor's counter-offer is for the Republicans to join Democrats in temporarily extending current vehicle and sales tax rates to help balance the budget by June 15 and allow voters to have their say in a special September election. It seems extending current tax rates beyond the original July 1 sunset date in order to allow voters to decide whether they will tax themselves in just three months is further than the Republicans will go.
In fact, Republicans don't believe they even need to participate in efforts to balance the state's budget by the constitutionally mandated deadline!
In the Times article, Republican vice chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Bob Huff, said that it's up to Democrats, who hold strong majorities in both houses of the Legislature, to meet the constitutional deadline. Although Democrats hold majorities in both houses, it will require six Republican votes to met the 2/3rds threshold necessary to set a special election.
"There's a lot of different things [Democrats] can do" to close the deficit, [Huff] said. "It's not our responsibility to find those things." In other words, Republicans want Governor Brown and the Democrats in Sacramento to fail to balance the budget so they can turn around and attack them for the failure -- all without lifting a finger.
In addition, Brown and the Democrats have already met the republicans more than half way. They have agreed to:
- Impose a new restraint on state spending to force California to use any future windfalls to pay down tens of billions of dollars in debt incurred by past budgets.
- Change the current retirement system for public employees by providing the option of a retirement package that would include a 401(k).
- Adopt a plan to require that the state produce a report on the economic impact of any new regulations before they can be enacted.
- Set a cap for government expenditures until about $25 billion in state debts are paid off.
- Assure that all loans from Wall Street and money owed to schools, cities and counties would be repaid before other spending could grow.
- Place curbs on pension sweeteners likes "spiking" — large pay increases shortly before retirement that dramatically boost pensions — and workers' ability to purchase credit for years they don't actually work, a practice known as "air time."
- Put a ceiling on the size of pensions and the option of a hybrid 401(k)-style plan for new state employees.
All of these concessions are changes the Republican's have been seeking for years. Yet, they are willing to forgo them all in order to make the Governor look bad.
Just think what could have been accomplished if the Republicans would simply participate in attempting to balance the state's budget.
