Subscribe to this blog's feed"No one wants to celebrate what we did in Sacramento," Karen Bass said. "These are drastic times, and we know who gets hurt in drastic times."
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass spoke this morning to several hundred organizers gathered by Liberty Hill and other groups concerned about the state budget crisis.
Bass said she felt like a hostage at Gitmo during the budget process and acknowledged her pain being Assembly Speaker in a year when the state faced a $42 billion budget deficit.
With the budget tentatively resolved pending passage of the May 19 ballot initiatives, Bass laid out a 3 point plan for change:
1. First and foremost we need to get rid of the 2/3 vote.
2. We need to change a tax structure in which 144,000 tax payers pay 50 percent of taxes, and
3. We need to reform the initiative process.
Other information of interest:
1. Bass noted that it is not yet clear how much money California will see from the stimulus package.
2. The legislative analyst will release numbers in the next few weeks indicating that revenue is projected to be $14-15 billion lower than the budget assumed. This contradicts the A1 story in the L.A. Times today that put the figure at $8 billion.
How do you feel about the ballot package being placed before voters May 19th? Are the cuts we know preferable to the cuts that may come down the pike if the initiatives aren't passed?
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