SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the leaders of the Assembly and Senate on Wednesday to scrap their plan to raise taxes to help close the state's budget deficit, but the two Democrats insisted they would move ahead next week with a vote of the full Legislature.
With less than six weeks until the state faces insolvency, the governor appeared outside his Capitol office after a meeting with the lawmakers, promising to veto the plan completed Tuesday by a joint legislative committee if it reaches his desk.
The proposal included what the lawmakers said were $11 billion in cuts to programs dear to Democrats -- to education, healthcare and welfare -- along with $10 billion in accounting maneuvers and other financial moves such as selling state assets.
But it was the levies intended to raise $1.9 billion in new taxes on oil and tobacco, and fees on motorists to fund state parks, that Schwarzenegger said would be unfair to Californians after higher taxes were imposed on them in February.
"None of that will fly with me," the governor said. "It will be irresponsible after the largest tax increase in California's history just four months ago to go back to the people and to say we want to increase your taxes but we want to protect the salaries of state workers."
The Democrat-controlled budget committee Tuesday rejected the governor's proposal to cut state employee salaries by 5% on top of the two unpaid days off per month that they are already required to take. The lawmakers also dispensed with many of his steepest cuts to state programs, which would have eliminated California's welfare system, its health insurance for children and college tuition aid for low-income students.
"The price is too high," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).
Schwarzenegger, however, criticized the lawmakers for employing accounting maneuvers to avoid some of the most painful decisions. One would push a month of state payroll into the next fiscal year. The governor acknowledged that he had proposed a gimmick similar to another the lawmakers employed: to increase tax withholdings and temporarily provide the state with more cash.
The plan to raise taxes, however, was the one the governor mostly strongly urged legislators to "revisit," saying, "I will without any doubt veto it, and I made that clear to the legislative leaders."
