Momentum builds for austerity budget in California

California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has set a March 10 deadline to reach agreement on a budget to resolve the state’s $26 billion budget deficit. The two-chamber budget conference committee approved the governor’s proposed measures, setting up floor votes in the House and Senate this week...While the next fiscal year doesn’t begin until July 1, the March 10 deadline for passage of a bill is dictated by Brown’s plan to place a measure on the June ballot to authorize the extension of more than $12 billion in regressive tax increases.

While both political parties agree on the spending cuts, Republicans in the House and Senate have expressed opposition to the tax extensions, calling into question a timely passage of the state budget. Under state law, budgets that include tax increases must be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses. Assuming unanimous Democratic support, that means at least two Republicans from each chamber will have to vote in favor of the governor’s plan.

Most significant are the recommendations to make sweeping changes in existing pension plans. Past pension “reform” efforts centered on the imposition of cuts for future employees only.

According to Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, public pensions “have become a vehicle for wealth accumulation. Benefits at this point are too generous.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/cali-m07.shtml

You have to get elected to do that!

Then empty out the prisons of people only there for simple possession.

And he is pretty much getting a free ride while doing so

But confiscatory taxation of the wealthy is a more direct way to accomplish that.

Both sides are in agreement. Bipartisanship achieved.