Sacramento mired in budget bickering

(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Having failed to deliver during a special legislative session Gov. Jerry Brown called last year, Sacramento Democrats and Republicans squared off on Medi-Cal and infrastructure spending this week.
A large health care hole has developed in the current state budget, driven by the increased Medi-Cal enrollment under the rules set by the Affordable Care Act. But no consensus has formed around how to fix it. “The administration, lawmakers and health plans continue to be deadlocked on Brown’s proposal to expand a tax on health plans to help generate about $1 billion for Medi-Cal,” the Sacramento Bee noted. “Republican critics say the new tax would saddle millions of health plan customers with higher costs. But administration officials have warned that the lack of a replacement tax would force offsetting health care cuts in the governor’s budget,” while some Democrats have joined Republicans in questioning the wisdom of a refashioned tax, the Bee added.
The current tax supplying Medi-Cal with funding will expire in June. “The governor’s chief adviser, Nancy McFadden, has cautioned against relying on the extra tax money coming in,” the Associated press reported. “Even as more people enroll, the program faces a shortage of doctors since reimbursement payments were slashed by 10 percent during the recession.”
Meanwhile, on infrastructure, the governor’s office has also faced an uphill climb. “Brown proposed a mix of taxes, fees and cap-and-trade money that he said would generate about $3.6 billion annually,” as the Bee noted. “But Republicans have vowed to reject any plan that includes a tax increase, and negotiations remain on idle.” Because tax increases require a two-thirds vote of support in the Legislature, Republicans have been able to flex their muscle. But some hopes have centered around a proposal by State Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose. His plan “would raise an additional $4.5 billion a year for highway maintenance projects and $1.5 billion for mass transit improvements, such as BART extension lines to Livermore and Richmond,” without allocating any spending to the state’s high-speed rail endeavor, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Persistent divides
In addition to the two dominant issues they must confront, legislators have placed education, the environment, guns and water in their crosshairs, according to the AP. “But lawmakers will again be confronted with the Democratic governor’s ‘less is more’ spending approach when he releases his budget proposal, due by Jan. 10,” the wire observed. “Democratic leaders are already beating the drums for more spending, pointing to legislative analyst Mac Taylor’s estimate that the state will have $3.6 billion more this year than assumed,” wrote Dan Walters at the Mercury News. “The Assembly’s incoming speaker, Anthony Rendon, wants a heavy state commitment to expand prekindergarten education, a longtime goal of children’s advocates, who contend that it will improve academic achievement.”
But analysts expected Gov. Brown’s new budget proposal to pour cold water on the kinds of ambitions his party rank and file have pushed for again. Brown “will release his budget proposal for the coming year Thursday, amid a strong state economy and fiscal experts’ predictions that tax revenue will continue to surpass estimates from last June,” the Bee reported. “If Brown’s past budget proposals are any clue, the Democratic governor will warn that it all could quickly go south. The fourth-term governor’s spending plan is unlikely to include big new policy proposals.
Federal funds
7 comments
Write a commentWrite a Comment
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Related Articles
End of session defined by higher taxes, anti-Trump and union priorities
SACRAMENTO – California’s legislative session, which completed its work in the wee hours Saturday morning, was one of the more
National City Eminent Domain On Ropes?
MARCH 21, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Just as State Assembly Republicans were pulling their punches to keep eminent domain alive for
L.A. city spat pits Wall Street against unions
The latest twist in Los Angeles city politics has shed light on an important new trend in fiscal politics. With
There should be no bickering about how “excess revenues” should be spent. The California Constitution requires the state to adequately fund K-12 public education. The Capistrano Unified School District is not receiving sufficient funding to provide the State’s mandated minimum curriculum. Students who cannot fundraise for art music and science have no art music and science. The States new education funding law limits K-12 per pupil funding to 2007-08 levels + inflation. In 2007-08 state revenues were $105 billion- today they are in excess of $117 billion. Slide Presentation to CUSD Board of Trustees January 27, 2016
http://www.slideshare.net/DawnUrbanek/fundraising-for-core-educational-programs
Per Pupil Funding in Capistrano Unified is $7,673 (virtually flat for 14 years straight by 2021)
And that debate would go something like this…
“We need to squeeze more money out of our peasants”
“No, you’re wrong! We need to squeeze a lot more money out of them!”
“We need to squeeze more money out of our peasants”
“No, you’re wrong! We need to squeeze a lot more money out of them!”
LOL!!!!
Perhaps that “hole” in the Medi-Cal funding wouldn’t exist if the Governor and Legislature hadn’t covered all of the illegal population flooding into California through the open border. Medi-Cal has been floundering for years and the extra burden has sunk the ship with all the $$.
Hey now-it is other people’s money, what could possibly go wrong!
EASY FIX! :
Immediately require all persons that can be classified as a “Public Employee” to purchase their own Health Insurance from the “California Covered Exchange”.
All Taxpayer funds that we were using on Inferior,Expensive Health Insurance can now be spent on our Roads and Highways. The Increased enrollment in the exchange will be more than enough to cover the massive welfare State they Covet.
Public Employee Affordable Care Enrollment Act
PEACE Act
Ptoblem Solved!