New Battlefields In Budget Fights
Deadlocked over how to close massive deficits amid dwindling tax revenues, budget negotiations in several states moved out of the state house and into courthouses and backrooms Wednesday.
Six states are still without budgets despite the start of a new fiscal year. Four other states passed spending plans just before or right after the midnight Tuesday deadline, and in some of those state capitals, wrangling continues over the fine print.
The sharpest crisis is in California, where a $38.8 billion budget gap has prompted a recall drive to oust Gov. Gray Davis. The Los Angeles Times reports Republican lawmakers have gone to court to try to overturn Davis' order tripling car taxes. Meanwhile, state workers are giving a cold shoulder to Davis' request that they forgo raises this year. He's warned 10,000 may be laid off if the raises are paid.
This is the third consecutive time California has begun a new fiscal year Tuesday without a state budget, but it marks the first time the state is operating completely on borrowed money. The lack of a budget has cut off payments to nursing homes, community centers and local schools, The Times reports.
The salaries of the governor, legislators, state appointees and about 1,000 non-civil service employees won't be paid until a budget is adopted, although most of the state's 200,000 workers will continue receiving their full pay, at least for now.
State Controller Steve Westly says the state only has enough cash to get through mid-August, and officials say the state cannot borrow any more until a new budget is passed.
Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, a Democrat, apologized late Monday to California taxpayers for missing the deadline and promised to call a session on Wednesday to take up a Republican proposal.
But the likelihood of a budget agreement anytime soon appears remote. Democrats, who hold big majorities in both houses, need Republican support to approve a spending plan.
California is one of the few states that require a two-thirds majority to pass the budget and Republicans have more than enough votes to block passage as long as they want.
Davis has proposed a budget plan that includes a mix of service cuts, borrowing and higher taxes to bridge the gap. Republicans say they won't support new taxes, while Democrats are unwilling to cut enough to balance the budget without new taxes.
Lawmakers in Oregon, New Hampshire and Connecticut approved short-term spending plans allowing government to operate while debate continued. Residents in Nevada and Rhode Island also began the year without a new budget but their governments continued to operate.
Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, a Republican, used state troopers to subpoena legislators back into negotiations on Tuesday, but The Hartford Courant reports they met for only 15 minutes before adjourning again. The deadlock there could lead to a lower bond rating for state debt.
Oregon's governor and the leaders of the state House and Senate will take over budget negotiations, reports the Salem Statesman Journal, after concluding that talks involving more lawmakers were, in the House speaker's words, "unwieldy."
In New Hampshire, the legislature has approved a stop-gap plan to keep government running for three months. It sustained Gov. Craig Benson's veto of the latest budget and plans to convene a special committee on July 9 to try to bridge the gap, says the Concord Monitor.
Nevada's governor, Kenny Guinn, want to the Supreme Court to force the legislature to balance the budget by an unspecified deadline, reports the Las Vegas Sun.
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