Forum… Or Against ’em

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Governor Jerry Brown has reduced his $179.5-billion budget for the fiscal year beginning in July to $177.1 billion…
He has been at this being governor thing long enough that you would think he could get it right. Why, $2.4 billion is about half of what I am personally worth. If I was off by that much every year, I’d be in the poorhouse in two years…
He claims all of this reduction will come about because of lagging tax revenue collections, which has now made his fellow Democrats give up their calls for additional spending. It seems now the Republicans’ demands for additional cuts may finally be given the attention they merit…
Brown’s budget advisors lowered the official tax revenue forecast because of what they now see as slower than expected growth in wages and consequent government income. They also reduced expectations for sales and corporate taxes because of broader national trends…
Our governor is proposing that we come to terms with this newly discovered deficit primarily by slowing the growth in spending on public schools by $1.7 billion, a change that brings funding down to the minimum required by formulas layered into California’s Constitution…
“To manage unreliability requires prudence,” Brown said of his decisions to address the projected budget shortfall. Well, that is something I can agree with…
Traditionally, the governor is given broad leeway in framing how the state will spend its money. I’m thinking that this $2.4 billion budget gap is nothing to sneeze at and maybe others should be given a sounding board on saying exactly how this money is to be spent…
Sacramento’s annual budget writing season will be hitting fever pitch in a month or two. We will be hearing more and more on the details in the weeks ahead. We are faced with changing fiscal conditions. We might soon see a push by the Republicans, who are in charge in D.C. nowadays, to reduce a major portion of the $105 billion in federal funding promises the state expects to receive for a variety of services…
The governor’s budget also shortchanges the doctors who were promised they would be given higher reimbursement rates from the revenue generated by the passage of Proposition 56, last year’s tobacco tax increase earmarked to boost healthcare funding. Now that’s what I call some real sleight-of-hand…

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