| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front Economy |
| Budget meeting blows up |
| 2008-12-12 |
| Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill declared legislative negotiations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger essentially dead after an apparently hostile meeting Thursday in the governor's office. The Republican governor and legislative leaders publicly blamed one another this week for their failure to resolve a $14.8 billion gap in the current $100 billion state general fund budget. Cogdill, of Modesto, said leaks from "Big 5" meetings between four legislative leaders and the governor have undermined future talks. Cogdill said he would attend future meetings with Schwarzenegger "out of respect for him and out of respect for his office." But he said he believes any deal will now be brokered among the legislative leaders and without Schwarzenegger. "I believe that the Big 5 process has been irreparably compromised as a result of comments in the press over the last couple of days, and it's pretty difficult to negotiate in good faith in that situation," Cogdill said. "My personal belief is that any resolution to this that is going to be negotiated will result from efforts with the Big 4 similar to what we were able to accomplish with the budget last year, because, again, I just don't see this process as being productive or helpful." Schwarzenegger and fiscal leaders have warned that without swift budget action the state will run out of cash in February. The governor has proposed immediate solutions that include tax hikes and spending cuts, a proposal that Democrats say they are willing to entertain but Republicans have lambasted because of its tax increases. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Here or not, the money is still not there to pay for California's party. Michael Jackson's Wonderland is a fitting microcosm of the place. Samuel Johnson - Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging. They're not there yet. Soon maybe. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-12-12 07:59 |
| #6 A year from now they'll all be legal, the Dems will have a permanent majority in the making and this discussion will be moot. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2008-12-12 04:49 |
| #5 The illigels will leave after the economy collapses. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-12-12 03:54 |
| #4 No way anyone is going after the illegals. They're here because the Dems want to cement a permanent majority in the voter base post-legalization and the Reps want them to pay FICA taxes post-legalization to stave off the worst of the coming implosion of SS & MC. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2008-12-12 02:36 |
| #3 I wonder how much illegals have brought into the economy, and how much they have taken away. And how long before the finger pointing dies down and they kick all the illegals out. |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-12-12 02:29 |
| #2 Davis was a model of fiscal restraint compared to the governator in much the same way Clinton was a model of fiscal restraint compared to Bush. Whow knows, maybe the lefties really are more sane on spending than these new Republicans. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2008-12-12 01:41 |
| #1 California is the 8th largest economy on the planet. YOU have no busines asking for money. PERIOD. If the terminator cannot balance it, he is useless. The only reason your sorry foreign ass was elected in the gary recall was to fix THAT. Come in my eye? |
| Posted by: newc 2008-12-12 01:29 |