George Skelton | CAPITOL JOURNAL - Legislators uncork a plan to pick the pockets of the poor

Sacramento — This is how it seems: The state Assembly speaker uncorked two bottles of very expensive wine as legislative leaders sat around negotiating a budget deal. They got a little buzz on and decided to go out and mug some blind, disabled and elderly poor.

That's not exactly what happened, probably. But it's close enough to be cataloged as nonfiction.

We do know this much because aides to Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) told reporters: During negotiations in his Capitol office Tuesday, Nunez served up two distinguished Napa Valley reds -- a $150, 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia and a 2003 Quintessa Meritage valued at $224.

In the warm afterglow -- well, actually, it was the next day -- Nunez took a stroll around Capitol Park with the two Republican leaders: Assemblyman Michael Villines of Clovis and Sen. Dick Ackerman of Irvine.

"The wine helped a little bit," a smiling Ackerman told reporters, referring to the negotiations. "He has good wine."

The libation didn't help enough, obviously. Ackerman and Senate Republicans still

haven't agreed to the $146-billion compromise budget that everyone else of importance has in the Capitol. Nor do they have a proposal of their own.

Anyway, it was about the time of the wine-tasting that the legislative leaders hatched their plan to roll California's most vulnerable.OK, maybe I'm guilty of a cheap shot. But it's no more a cheap shot than picking the pockets of the poor in order to bring spending and taxes closer into balance.

The victims list includes 1.2 million impoverished aged, blind and disabled, plus 500,000 welfare families, mostly single moms with two kids.

In the first category, the state figures on pocketing $123 million by delaying a $20 monthly inflation adjustment for five months. Rather than getting the bump next Jan. 1, recipients will have to wait until June 1.

These are people living on the edge off SSI-SSP -- federal Supplemental Security Income and the State Supplementary Program. For most, it's their only income source. They don't get food stamps.

The current combined federal-state grant is $856 for an individual; $1,502 for a couple. There will be a $12 monthly federal increase in January, if the state doesn't wind up confiscating the federal money, as it has in the past.