California Budgets

Reporting from Sacramento -- The most powerful players in California's deep-blue Legislature these days may be a clutch of Republican senators known as the GOP Five. Amid party-line warfare over Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget, they have bucked Republican leadership ? and risked their careers ? to wheel and deal with the Democratic governor, who needs two of their votes to pass his plan. Nearly every other Republican has snubbed Brown, largely because his spending blueprint includes billions of dollars in extended taxes.

Reporting from Sacramento -- State lawmakers Wednesday approved billions of dollars in cuts to welfare, medical programs for the poor and in-home care for the elderly and frail, among other services, moving forward key pieces of Gov. Jerry Brown's budget reduction package. They also voted to sharply reduce services for the developmentally disabled and shifted hundreds of millions of dollars away from mental health and early childhood programs to use instead to reduce the deficit.

Budget talks in Sacramento are intensifying as Gov. Jerry Brown presses lawmakers to approve a spending plan in time to put four proposed tax increases on the ballot in June. The plan on the table, however, includes a major change in tax law that would not be put before the voters: a new approach to calculating the bills owed by multi-state businesses. The change would bring in an additional $1 billion a year, narrowing the cavernous gap in the state's budget. The best argument for it, though, is that the current approach is harebrained and counterproductive.

Time is running out for the Legislature to ask voters to extend four temporary tax increases that were due to expire this year. The extensions, which would cost taxpayers about $12 billion over the next 18 months, are a tough sell at a time of high unemployment and sluggish growth. But the budget plan endorsed Thursday by Democrats on a legislative conference committee would also make deep, meaningful spending cuts, and supporters have made a persuasive case that letting the temporary tax hikes expire would force core public services to be slashed further in almost unthinkable ways.

Closing California's deficit this year would be immeasurably easier if the state weren't paying for a 10-year borrowing binge. Without that tab, officials could scrap plans to close state parks, force nearly a million low-income children to go without eye care and take in-home aid away from hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind and disabled residents. But the state has had an insatiable appetite for debt in recent years. In the last decade, the debt per resident has tripled, to $2,362, according to the credit-rating agency Moody's Investors Service.

Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday that he would hold out for a budget that cuts more than $25 billion from state services if voters and lawmakers do not approve more taxes. Brown made his comments to a panel of lawmakers who are working on a spending plan ? the first time in nearly 50 years that a sitting governor has testified before the Legislature. "I want to make one thing clear," Brown said. "... If we don't get the tax extensions, I am not going to sign a budget [unless it is]

Look, I've got nothing against mermaid bars. In fact, state government used to work best when legislators hung out in one near the Capitol. I just question whether state government ? any government ? should be helping to pay for a mermaid bar. Redevelopment funds helped construct one that recently opened in Sacramento, a couple of blocks from the Capitol. It'll have to go some to match the success of the old mermaid bar. In the '60s and '70s, it was a popular watering hole for lawmakers, lobbyists, journalists and hacks.

Squeezed between the Doritos and Budweiser ads during last weekend's Super Bowl was a spot paid for with California tax dollars. Airtime for the most expensive television event of the year is probably not the first item on which deficit-plagued California might be expected to spend money. The ad, exhorting people to quit smoking, came as Gov. Jerry Brown had proposed gutting many state healthcare services to help balance the budget. The commercial was a part of a $14.5-million television campaign funded this year partly by a 25-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes.

Reporting from Sacramento Gov. Jerry Brown pulled the plug Wednesday on the planned sale of two dozen state office buildings, calling the proposal negotiated by his predecessor a raw deal for taxpayers. Brown's announcement came after the state had struck an agreement to sell 11 properties, including the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, and rent space in the same buildings for decades. The transaction would have generated $1.2 billion to help balance California's budget, but independent experts had warned that it would cost taxpayers far more over time.

California's public higher education leaders warned Monday that additional tuition increases could be in store this fall if legislators or voters reject Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to extend several recent tax hikes. And even if the tax proposal is approved, the educators said, they expect some academic programs to be eliminated next year. University of California President Mark G. Yudof, California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed and California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott appeared before a state legislative panel in Sacramento to discuss Brown's plan to cut $1.4 billion from higher education funding.