State Controller John Chiang announced today that California is 6 days from the edge. Unless the Legislature passes a budget by the end of June, California will begin to issue IOUs on July 2.
Check out the full press release here.
Unfortunately, Republican legislators withheld their support from a budget bill today that would make over $12 billion in cuts to help balance the budget. Apparently, they oppose revenues and cuts as strategies to close our budget gap.
These budget cuts were crafted with their input within the Conference Committee composed of 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Therefore, I don’t see the logic behind statements made by some Republicans today that Democrats have somehow “shut us [Republicans] out of the process.”
But encouraging signs are to be found. This afternoon Speaker Karen Bass announced that she will be meeting with Assembly Republican Leader Sam Blakeslee tonight to find common ground with the objective of identifying budget items for a vote tomorrow.
