UPDATE:
Governor Brown vetoed the proposed budget Thursday morning.
"Unfortunately, the budget I have received is not a balanced solution," Brown's statement said. "It continues big deficits for years to come and adds billions of dollars of new debt. It also contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings. Finally, it is not financeable and therefore will not allow us to meet our obligations as they occur."
You can also watch his YouTube video explaining his decision at right.
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Democratic lawmakers passed a state budget Wednesday over Republicans' objections, using their new ability to approve a spending plan with a simple majority vote.
The package, which Gov. Jerry Brown still needs to sign, would shrink California’s roughly $10-billion budget deficit through a blend of taxes, more cuts and accounting maneuvers.
According to the Los Angeles Times, it would require that online retailers collect sales taxes, would impose new fees on homeowners in fire-prone zones and would raise local sales taxes. It would also cut deeper into higher education, public safety and the courts.
Brown been trying to negotiate with Republicans to place a tax measure on the fall ballot and to extend expiring vehicle and sales taxes. Those tax extensions are regarded as crucial to avoiding even further state cuts to public education. officials said Wednesday night the district could face an additional $500,000 in state cuts if the tax extensions aren’t passed, exacerbating an .
Republican state legislators are demanding overhauls to state pension, spending and regulator policy before they will discuss the tax extensions. Those talks have sputtered in recent days.
Mill Valley’s state representatives praised the budget given the circumstances.
“I applaud the Governor for fighting hard for an honest budget that would solve the state’s short- and near-term fiscal problems,” said state Assemblyman Jared Huffman in a statement. “After months of negotiations, however, there was no hope Republicans would work with us to extend temporary revenues and place them before voters for approval later this year. The budget plan we sent to Governor Brown is not our first choice, but this plan, along with the $14 billion in cuts we approved in March, will ensure California’s financial stability for the coming year and help us move forward.”
State Senator Mark Leno, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said the senate used its newfound power to craft a spending plan under Proposition 25, which voters approved last November.
“Without the two Republican votes in the Senate we needed to maintain current revenue levels, the budget we approved today represents the best possible solution we could develop given the tools we had available,” Leno said. “To be perfectly clear, this is not our preferred budget plan for California. Without an extension of current revenues, we were forced to make significant cuts to public education, higher education, social services, our court system, state parks and public safety. We have much work yet to do to meet the court mandate to reduce the prison population and address the state’s significant wall of debt and unresolved $6 billion annual structural deficit. This is the reality we face with a state that is starved for cash.”
