That explosion you heard in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday was the big blowup of Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans to ask voters in June to extend billions of dollars in taxes to balance the deficit-riddled state budget.
Brown terminated negotiations with Republican legislators, citing a lengthy list of GOP demands last week….
Meanwhile, everyone is pointing fingers of blame. As Brown and Democratic leaders pointed to Republican demands, Republicans said Brown was hamstrung in negotiations by opposition of labor unions and other interests to pension, regulatory and budget reforms.
One of the GOP senators who negotiated with Brown, Anthony Cannella, said, “finding agreement required an equal willingness from the public employee unions, trial attorneys and other stakeholders to join our effort to get California moving again – a willingness that was stunningly absent from our conversations …”
Actually, polls indicate that the GOP positions on pension and budget reform are more popular than the taxes the Democrats want. A fair compromise would have been to put those on the ballot as well and allow voters to truly decide.
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