Calif. Senate Locked Down Over Budget

[Ghost in the Machine]

Calif. Senate Locked Down Over Budget
Published: 7/21/07, 4:45 AM EDT
By AARON C. DAVIS

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A stubborn disagreement over whether to cut a tiny fraction of California's $145 billion budget proposal led to a rare legislative lock-down that left state senators stuck in their chamber Saturday.

The Senate's leader, a Democrat, took the unusual step after Republicans refused to reconsider their demand for a balanced budget and Democrats said they would agree to no more cuts.

Lawmakers needed permission to exit the chamber, and some already were talking about what they might order for breakfast. Some slept at their desks, while others strolled out on the Capitol balcony for a smoke as the grueling, late-night session churned into Saturday morning.

"If it takes all weekend, it takes all weekend," said Lynda Gledhill, spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, who ordered the rare legislative lock-down.

After six months of negotiations, thousands of hours of meetings and an all-night session the previous day in the Assembly, finding the two-thirds majority required to pass the budget in the Senate was proving elusive. Two Republicans were needed to meet that threshold in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7434&eeid=5314339&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=1&ck=&ch=ne

[fasttense]

1. Since when do deficit matter to repukes?

"Ackerman said Senate Republicans remained unified in their opposition to the spending plan because it doesn't go far enough to eliminate the state's operating deficit. The deficit was reduced to about $700 million - about one half of 1 percent of the overall spending plan - in the budget approved by the Assembly."

The hypocrites say anything to get their way. Here is what they are really trying to get:

"Earlier Friday, Perata called a separate package of tax credits that had been sought by Republicans and passed in the Assembly as a companion to the budget bill "dead on arrival" in the Senate.

The credits would benefit movie studios, high tech firms and other companies, but Perata's office estimated they would cost the state between $600 million and $1 billion a year in lost revenue.

Republicans said the credits would make California's tax code more competitive with other states and drive business into California, thereby increasing the state's tax revenues."

Tax cuts for the rich is what they really want.

[Ghost in the Machine]

2. Yep, the republicronies only want to help themselves, no one else..

I think it's time to declare the whole republicrony party a 'continuing criminal enterprise' and do away with them...

[777999]

3. Burden is always on the little guy

tax breaks for the rich is what the repubs are about