After several weeks of painful negotiations, fiery speechmaking, a GOP leadership coup and all-night legislative sessions, the California State Legislature passed a budget on Feb. 19. The budget includes $41 billion in solutions that address the current-year shortfall and enacts the 2009-10 budget four months early. It includes $15.12 billion in expenditure reductions, including more than $13 billion in cuts, $14.4 billion in taxes, and $11.9 billion in borrowing. This formula may change pending the state\u2019s tax receipts later this spring and whatever the state receives in the federal stimulus money. We have difficult work to do on creating jobs, addressing the foreclosure crisis and jumpstarting the state\u2019s economy, so getting this budget passed and enacted is necessary if we are to move forward on the state\u2019s other pressing needs. If the Legislature hadn\u2019t passed the budget, the state would have halted construction on a number of infrastructure projects resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and the state becoming increasingly unable to provide much-needed assistance to increasing numbers of unemployed and financially distressed Californians. Budget solutions crafted in negotiations between Democrats, Republicans and the governor reflect the state\u2019s nearly $42 billion shortfall and the nation\u2019s grim economic reality. There isn\u2019t much to like in this budget and there is a lot all sides have to learn to live with until the economy improves, but dealing with the budget is an essential step to addressing these other economic issues. In a surprising move, the California Chamber of Commerce, the state\u2019s premier advocate for business interests, came out in support of the plan, acknowledging that a combination of cuts and revenues will be necessary to save the state from a fiscal meltdown. That shows you the severity of our budget situation and its effect on the entire economy. I believe we have prevented the worst from happening \u2013 the complete debilitation of state government with dire consequences for the rest of the state\u2019s economy. Now our work begins to create jobs, reform the budget process and keep people in their homes. \u2014 Lori Salda\u00f1a represents the 76th Assembly District and serves as the Assembly Speaker Pro Tem.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After several weeks of painful negotiations, fiery speechmaking, a GOP leadership coup and all-night legislative sessions, the California State Legislature passed a budget on Feb. 19. The budget includes $41 billion in solutions that address the current-year shortfall and enacts the 2009-10 budget four months early. It includes $15.12 billion in expenditure reductions, including more […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Hard work on budget reform lies ahead","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11593,11552,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-no-images","category-opinion","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}