Yesterday afternoon, budget talks in Sacramento officially collapsed. Last night, Governor Jerry Brown YouTubed his side of the story (Update 1:15 p.m. Republicans may enjoy this annotated version more.)
"Even though we came very close, there are issues that I think are impossible to resolve at this time. One of the most glaring is a billion-dollar tax break to giant companies that keep jobs out of California. I don't think we should take money from school children, from public safety, and universities, and give it to companies that don't want to create jobs in California. That's a stumbling block, and there are others."
In case you're wondering, our budget guy John Myers describes the tax break Brown called out this way:
...the $1.4 billion rollback of a law that allows some corporations to choose how to calculate much of their tax liability. That was actually a budget concession to GOP pols two years ago, in exchange for a tax increase that left lingering resentment among anti-tax groups.
"They put corporate tax breaks ahead of our children and students," said Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.
(Aside #1: Some Republicans immediately sniped on Tuesday that voters overwhelmingly supported that tax break by defeating Proposition 24 on last November's ballot. Well, sort of. Prop 24 would have actually rolled back three separate tax breaks. It's also unclear whether voters were making a nexus between revenues and expenses in that campaign.)
Post-mortems abound on the failed attempt to craft a budget before the actual start of the fiscal year on July 1, as opposed to when people have started pricing Halloween candy.
- No Mas, Says Brown (John Myers, Capital Notes)
- Jerry Brown's state budget plan blows up (Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee)
- Brown Faces Few Options After Breakdown of Budget Negotiations (Jessica Levinson, KCET)
- Cartoon: How Jerry Brown's budget might win Republican approval (Ted Rall, LA Times)
- No Budget Deal Is Much Better Than A Bad Budget Deal (Jon Fleischman, Flash Report)