Even Bigger Budget Cuts?

Arnold is motioning that he will propose even deeper budget cuts than he previously called for. Remember that his January budget proposal balanced on the backs of children of parents on welfare and the homeless. There is no indication yet of where these new cuts would come from, but history says that Arnold will go after the most vulnerable Californians. He will be presenting his revised budget to the legislature next week. SacBee:

Growing expenses and the housing market's drag on the economy are putting pressure on California's finances, said Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer. The governor and his staff are meeting this week to make tough choices on how to curtail the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Palmer said.

"The governor has talked about cutting the rate of growth in spending," Palmer said. "In order to do that, we're going to have to take action on the spending side of the budget."

Budget forecasters watched with concern as state income-tax revenues dipped below expectations during the first months of the current fiscal year. The numbers rebounded by the time Californians finished filing their April tax returns, but administration officials say the long-term outlook for the economy remains unclear.

The Democrats have already declared some of the earlier cuts to be unacceptable, and there is sure to be more fireworks over what ever Arnold proposes next. Education seems destined to be a hot potato again. The flailing housing market has decreased the revenue going into county property-tax coffers. The state may have to make up that up under Prop 98's rules.

And thanks largely to high gas prices that drove up the consumer price index in the first quarter of the year, education advocates calculate that the state also could owe schools as much as $260 million more than previously anticipated to account for inflation.

"It just makes it a bit of a tighter squeeze," said Kevin Gordon, a consultant on education budget issues. "I am very confident the governor will find a way to fully fund that (cost-of-living increase)."

A coalition of education groups Tuesday urged the governor to keep the $1.8 billion increase for schools that he proposed in his January budget, and perhaps increase it.

We will know more in the coming days. Arnold will probably leak a few details prior to his delivery of the revised budget next week. It has only gotten into the 90's in Sacramento. Plenty of time left until the triple digits that signal the hight of the budget season in California.