The California Legislative Authority adopts a preliminary budget of $ 325 billion

From Alexey KossefCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

California Legislative Power has accepted a state budget Today, this relies more on borrowing than to reduce costs to close the estimated deficit of $ 12 billion, striving to repel difficult priority solutions, even when this precipice is only It is expected to grow in future yearsS

The $ 325 billion legislative expense plan, which was approved by a democratic majority to a large extent guerrilla lines, is something of a formality, as legislators are needed constitutionally to pass a balanced budget by June 15 or to give up their pay.

After rejecting many of the abbreviations of social services that Governor Gavin Newsom suggested last month In order to stabilize California’s long -term finances, they now have to negotiate a compromise in the coming weeks, with the start of July 1 of the fiscal year outlining.

Both sides They remain at a distance of billions of dollarsEspecially the Medi-Cal, the State Health Insurance Program for the poor, as well as the home health services, public transport, higher education and promotion of state workers.

Democratic leaders said they wanted to slow down painful cuts by several years to give more time to find another solution that did not “balance the budget on the back of the most vulnerable” – and perhaps, perhaps, As a legislator said Wait for the “miracle” turn in California’s economy this week.

“The biggest result here would be to make cuts that we ultimately realize that we do not need to do – to throw people out of safety programs and then to come back and to realize, do you know what, the forecasts were excluded, it was not something that was necessary,” said the Assembly, the Democrat of Enchino, which is pressed, Voting. “We can be in a completely different world in six months.”

A major dispute is Medi-Cal, which leads to much of the deficit. The state has greatly expanded services in recent years and the costs are now increasing more than expected after more new patients are enrolled than projected. Legislators allocated billions of dollars additional funding To the program this spring to keep it a solvent.

NEWSOM has proposed major changes to deal with these structural problems, including freezing the enrollment of adults living in the country illegally, which became newly made last year, and added a $ 100 monthly premium and reduced long -term care and dental benefits for those who maintain their coverage. Governor also wants to remove the weight loss medicines like Ozepic and restore a Strict Test for Assets for Elderlywhich has recently been eliminated.

The legislature has accepted some of these proposals, such as freezing the recording and stopping of the coverage of weight loss drugs and scaling others, including the asset test. Legislators want to reduce the monthly premium for undocumented immigrants to $ 30, give those who lose their Medi-Cal coverage, as they cannot pay a chance to re-enroll, slow down their dental benefits and maintain their long-term care benefits.

Even this potential compromise is the anathema of some Democrats who have spoken against what they consider to be a “two -tier health system” during the debate on the floor, insisting on voting or seeking legislative power instead to consider raising taxes on billionaires.

“We cannot contribute to the fear and suffering of communities in our country and I urge me to look at alternatives,” says Assembly member Celeste Rodriguez, a Democrat from Arleta, who is almost in tears, while she told her colleagues that she was offended by the budget bill.

The legislative plan also rejects Newsom’s proposal to limit the extraordinary hours for support service providers and eliminate those benefits for adults living in the country illegally.

It restores the funding that the governor has tried to remove family planning clinics; The University of California, the California State University and the Student Financial Assistance; and public transit. It is moving forward with $ 767 million in promotes to civil servants, which Newsom has requested to pause and introduce funding for other legislative priorities, including over $ 900 million for affordable housing and mortgage assistance for home buyers for the first time. He proposes to take up to $ 1.75 billion from the state for local Los Angeles and transit agencies for San Francisco Bay, dealing with their own budget critches.

All this will add billions of dollars costs, next year and continuing, over the Newsom Plan, already relies on a displacement of money designed to pay for air-conditioning projects and refunds to Medi-Cal suppliers and withdraw $ 7.1 billion from the Rainy Day Reserve Fund to close the revenue difference. To pay for this, the legislature seeks to take even more from the state special funds.

Their approach can be difficult to maintain given the grim fiscal prospects of the state, with annual budget shortage expected to increase to $ 30 billion within the next three years. Stock Stock Exchange and Key California Industries Caused by the new Trump tariffs, as well as the expected federal cuts for funding, could deepen this hole.

“This budget was indeed handed over to hope,” said State Senator Roger Nilo, a Republican by Roshules, who serves as Vice -President of the Senate Budget Committee, “reporters told reporters. “The budget that is accepted of hope is a budget that is intended for problems.”

Outside of Californiars’ Californians?

And it is increasingly reflecting the will of the voters in California.

The California Public Policy Institute has been investigating residents since 2003 whether they prefer to have higher taxes and a state government, which provides more services or lower taxes and the state government, which provides less services.

While the Californians were closely preference for higher taxes and more services for more than 20 years, this recently turned. Ppic The last study published this week They found that 55% of the Californians would now prefer to have more taxes and less services -although this applies only to about one -third of the Democrats.

The study also found that 56% of adults in California believe it was a bad idea to immerse yourself in the Rainy Day Fund to help balance the budget, even when an equal number supports any combination of cost redundancies, increasing revenue and loans. And 58% are now opposed to providing a health coverage for undocumented immigrants, a complete conversion of the time when the question was last asked two years ago.

Mark Baldasare, director of the PPIC study, told Calmatters that in recent years traces of the political landscape with an increasingly large number of respondents, who believe the state is heading in the wrong direction and that bad economic times are forthcoming.

“There is so much pessimism about what the year may look like in California and in the nation that there is really a desire to shrink the size of the government and the expectations we have had before,” he said. “Voters are simply not convinced that we will not be in times when we can afford all the things we want from the government.”

Several Democrats agreed during the debate on the floor today that California should “make the right amount” its costs, especially with severe redundancies of federal funding, which is likely to come later this year.

“It is essential to arrange our house and prepare to withstand the storm,” says State Senator Catherine Blexpir, Democrat from Encinitas.

But most defended their plan as achieving the right balance between fiscal responsibility and maintaining the values ​​of California, generating intense criticism from Republicans.

“Let’s be practical. We cannot be all things for all people, but we can be responsible for the critical problems that make California a great country,” said Assembly member Diane Dixon, a Republican of Newport Beach, who cite the fire management and health services as a priority that the legislative should be focused on. “We can’t be perfect, which means we can’t do everything.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.