The California budget approved last week by the legislature and signed by the governor is tough medicine and hard to swallow. But with our state on the edge of a fiscal cliff, it had to be done.
Without this budget, hundreds of infrastructure projects would have been stopped, which means the state would have lost even more jobs; 20,000 layoff notices were ready to go to state workers; taxpayers' refunds would have continued to be withheld, small business vendors would get IOUs for payment, and students wouldn't get financial aid. And it would only have gotten worse.
With 9.3% unemployment and the highest number of foreclosures in the nation. California has been battered by the national economic crisis. This budget stops the bleeding and buys California time to weather the recession and move into recovery. . . .
As a former community organizer, this kind of insider process isn't my preferred way of reaching a compromise, but given the severity of the crisis, it was a necessity. . . I also hope we -- and that includes voters -- will finally fix the two-thirds vote requirement and remove the harm that it causes. In the best of times the two-thirds requirement can lead to budget game playing from those in the minority. In a crisis like we are in, the two-thirds requirement essentially allows budget solutions to be held up for ransom. That has to change.
