State of Emergency: Looking Forward
View looking west from the Capitol building IMG_4115 by V31S70, on Flickr
The Mid-range
We had some successes last week at the State of Emergency, but what is the long game? First up, will be getting an extension of revenues due to expire at the end of June. In today’s budget revise, where the Governor continues to press for tax extensions, there has been an increase in revenues ($6B) but the current shortfall stands at $15B. Easy math shows you we’ll need either more cuts, or more revenue. With $12B already cut from the rest of the budget by Governor Brown and the Democratic majority in the legislatures, there is no fat, and in some cases, little is left but bone (which was why the GOP proposal had legally dodgy shifts of money from the QEIA legal settlement, and from dedicated taxes for early childhood and mental health services). Here are a few scenarios that I’ll offer:
- The legislative majority grabs a couple GOP members making up a super-majority of 2/3rds to put the extension to the voters. Under Brown’s revise scenario, the taxes will be extended, and the vote will take place after the fact.
- The legislative majority opts to put the tax extensions to the voter on a majority vote (50%+1). The Legislative counsel earlier advised that as the taxes were an “extension” and not new, this could be done