California Republican lawmakers are calling Governor Jerry Brown’s revised budget proposal uglier than expected.
The Governor is asking for cuts to health and welfare programs, and a five-percent cut to state worker compensation to close a 16 billion dollar gap.
Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff says it relies too heavily on the Governor’s proposed tax initiative.“The biggest problem is that the Democrat leaders are just unwilling to enact the tough cuts that the Governor has called for, they’re unwilling to do the tough public reforms they’ve been saying no to everything until they get into a situation like this and wring their hands and say the only way we can balance this is to go out and raise taxes,” said Huff.
Democratic Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg says the Governor did a good job but has laid out a difficult proposal. “We will work assertively with the Governor and the Assembly to find some alternatives to the most egregious cuts,” said Steinberg.
Democrats say passing the proposed tax measure in November is imperative to end the deficit.
