Posted on 05/31/2005 2:41:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Setting the stage for a bitter summer budget fight, Assembly Democrats on Tuesday proposed adding $3.1 billion to schools and paying for it with an income tax hike on the state's top earners.
The proposal puts Democrats at odds with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been locked in a fight with educators since January over the amount of money due schools. The governor also has vowed to balance the state's budget without raising taxes.
Schwarzenegger has proposed an increase of $3 billion in school funding over last year. But the state's powerful education lobby claims public schools are owed an additional $3.1 billion that the governor promised to give them as part of an earlier budget agreement.
"The governor broke his promise, but we won't," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles. "We will not shortchange our schools of the resources they need to educate our children to compete in the world economy. That is the fundamental difference between our budget and the governor's."
Nunez would pay for the additional school funding by increasing income taxes on the state's top wage earners. The idea, proposed unsuccessfully in the past by Democrats, received little support from the governor's office.
"More spending, as the governor has indicated, is what got us into this mess," said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger's director of communications. "The governor remains opposed to tax increases. If the Legislature wants to put that forward, certainly it's their right to do so."
Schwarzenegger has proposed a $115.7 billion spending plan for next year.
The increase proposed by Nunez would boost the income tax on top earners by establishing new 10 percent tax brackets. Currently, the top rate is 9.3 percent.
His plan would give schools the $3 billion increase Schwarzenegger proposed and the additional $3.1 billion that schools claim they are owed from rising state revenue.
The state continues to spend tens of millions of dollars more each month than it takes in from tax revenue, but the improving economy has generated billions of dollars in unanticipated income over the past two years and is expected to do so again next year.
Schwarzenegger proposed spending much of the extra revenue on transportation programs that have been underfunded in recent years and wants to pay down some of the state's debt. He argues that schools have been given enough money and that any more funding would force cuts to other programs.
The Democratic budget plan comes as the Legislature begins budget hearings in earnest this week.
Lawmakers have a largely symbolic constitutional deadline of June 15 for adopting a budget. They typically are more focused on July 31, the end of the fiscal year, as the budget deadline, but even that date has rarely been met in recent years.
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On the Net:
Gov.'s home page: http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov-homepage.jsp
California Senate: http://www.sen.ca.gov/
California Assembly: http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/defaulttext.asp
Whoa. Never saw that coming.
Oh Arnold, are you starting to get the picture? It's never enough money, because it also buys they political power.
Make Love Not WAR! (except class warfare)
Democrats Propose More Spending could be the headline of every newspaper every day of the year.
Who would have guessed? They have no history of this kind of agenda.
"Let's punish those high wage earners. God knows we don't want any more of their kind around here."
Nothing new here.
Must say... coming from California it does not surprise me.
hmmm, more taxes on high wage earners and smokers...that should do the trick!!!
They really mean "new taxes on the working class".
I attended my daughters graduation ceremony from CSU Stanislaus which lasted over 3 1/2 hours. I was disgusted that the first couple of hours were spent with the faculty patting each other on the back and giving awards to each other.
Correct me if I'm wrong...isn't this the same legislative body that just voted itself a pay raise??? Where do they think they are, Massachusetts?
Hey, they got theirs...and now they want yours, too!
If I was Arnold, I'd mention the pay raise at every single public event.
What, no new gun control schemes? The democrats are losing their edge.
Sure. Go ahead an hike the income tax on your most productive folks. Then watch 'em head east.
The A-holes just got passed a new tax on the wealthy last big election because a majority of the voters felt this wasn't coming out of their own wallet.
Eventually, these wealthy people who most often are also big employers in this state, will leave or retire.
What then CA State Democrats?
These Democrats are so detached from what makes a state go.
Boy Arnold has a boat load with these turds to deal with.
What a fiasco. I'm soooooooo glad I escaped that gigantic cesspool.
Yes they did! I can't believe the gall of these jackasses. The budget doesn't get passed on schedule but their raises are never late.
Remember when the democrats put out the bulls**t that Clinton's HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, was a community college professor and mayor of San Antonio who lived on $25,000 a year? They didn't tell you about the big multimillion dollar development company he owned. Blah Blah Boxer, Nancy "Bimbo" Pelosi, and Diane Not-so-Feinstein are the cut out of the same bolt of left wing oligarchical cloth. They want to be rich at the expense of the rest of us.
The teacher's union and prior deals need to be scuttled for the sake of education in all states.
They have a big interest in illegals being in school since that grows their job.
That is by far concern #1 over the education of citizens that suffer illegals in class.
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