 |
 -0 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
Lawmakers Work for a Budget Deal So far, leading Republicans and Democrats publicly have stayed glued to their official positions, with Republicans opposing any tax hike and Democrats insisting that a comprehensive budget deal must include more revenue. But Davis' so-called May revise, released last week, gives something to each side: He agreed to a Republican-backed deficit-reduction bond, while proposing a half-cent sales tax to pay for it. His spending blueprint also anticipates higher car, cigarette and income taxes, and restores some money to cherished Democratic programs such as education and health care for the poor. Now, some Republicans are debating whether to use their leverage — a budget cannot be approved without at least a fewGOP votes in each house of the Democratically controlled Legislature — to win a cap on government spending or other concessions in areas such as workers' compensation in return for backing the proposed sales tax or other tax and fee hikes. The party is also trying to preserve a $500-million tax break for manufacturers set to expire this year. "The question is being posed by some Republican legislators," said Bill Leonard, the former Assembly Republican leader who now sits on the state Board of Equalization. "They are asking, 'Are our goals for workers' compensation reform and spending controls worth a tax increase of any kind?' " Leonard said that although most in the party remain firm in their position of no new taxes at any cost, several GOP lawmakers are raising the issue with colleagues as they search for a way out of the impasse. "They are having discussions about how to get out of this," Leonard said. As the July 1 deadline for approving a spending plan nears, Republicans are aware Democrats need some GOP support for the sales tax that would support the deficit-reduction bond. There is special urgency this year because analysts say the state's cash situation is so dire that it could run out in August if the leadership fails to agree on a budget in time. GOP Leverage So some are exploring the possibility of using that leverage to make gains in other areas, most notably the overhaul of the state's workers' compensation system, a bane of business owners who form a bulwark of Republican support. Publicly, Republican lawmakers say they have no such strategy. New taxes, they say, are an automatic deal breaker in any budget proposal — especially after the revised budget proposal unveiled by Davis last week, which Republicans characterized as an unwelcome lurch to the left by the governor. The revised plan included a proposal, first raised by Republicans, to borrow more than $10 billion to pay off the deficit, but it also called for more than $8 billion in new taxes and had more spending than the governor's January budget proposal. "Our members have been very clear," said Peter DeMarco, spokesman for Assembly minority leader Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks). "They all said they were not interested in supporting a budget that had a tax increase." Yet several acknowledge privately that they are listening closely to groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce, a key part of the GOP base that is more set on reforming workers' compensation than stopping a half-cent sales tax, no matter how distasteful they find that tax.
"It's not that we don't care about the sales tax," said Richard Costigan, the chamber's vice president for governmental relations. "It's just when you start comparing it to the rising cost of workers'
|
|
|
