California’s lawmakers finally reach a deal to close the state’s gaping budget deficit
Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from a meeting late on Monday July 20th of the “big five” political leaders in California to announce that, at long last, a deal had been reached on closing the state’s $26 billion budget deficit. It comes after months of partisan bickering, special legislative sessions and the rejection by voters of ballot proposals that would have gone some way to tackling the problem. California’s governor laid on the superlatives, calling the agreement hammered out with the Assembly speaker, Senate leader and Republican leaders of both houses of the legislature “a really, great, great accomplishment”.
The state legislature still needs to give its approval and will probably vote on the deal on Thursday. The accord’s fine details were not made public immediately but Mr Schwarzenegger stressed that there would be no across-the-board tax rises, which Republicans in the state had fought hard to avoid. Instead, the budget will bring in deep spending cuts, such as slicing $6 billion from the budget for schools and community colleges and $3 billion from higher education. …
