On Monday, Governor Brown introduced his first budget proposal for his new term. This proposal outlined deep cuts (about $12 billion worth) and a new extension for the expiring temporary tax increases (another $12 billion).
Using more revenue shifts and accounting tricks, the rest of the gap would disappear.
But the pain wouldn’t.
Higher education loses more than a billion in funding. Social safety nets for the disabled, children, and disabled, and unemployed will be cut.
A special election in June would be necessary to continue the tax increases.
From the Associated Press and Chico Enterprise Record:
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a budget for the coming fiscal year today that deals with the state’s ongoing deficit with tough medicine for nearly every Californian, making deep cuts to most areas of government while calling for a five-year extension of tax increases enacted in 2009.In releasing his first budget plan, the newly elected Democratic governor said he wanted to end the types of acccounting gimmicks, borrowing tricks and overly optimistic revenue assumptions that characterized the recent budgets signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His budget projects the deficit at $25.4 billion over the next 18 months.
Read the full article here.