California budget stand-off ends

CALIFORNIA

Sacramento, California - The California state legislature has passed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's 145-billion-dollar spending plan after one of the longest budget stalemates in recent state history. The Senate passed the budget late Tuesday with a vote of 27 to 12 after two of 14 holdout Republican senators agreed to end their opposition to the proposal.

The budget raises spending for schools, reduces aid to the elderly and disabled, increases student fees at state universities and cuts 1 billion dollars in transportation work to transfer the money to reduce the multibillion-dollar deficit the state has been carrying for years. Schwarzenegger said he welcomed the vote and would press on with other initiatives.:

'We now will move forward together on the issues we've been elected to address such as health care, a comprehensive water plan and redistricting reform,' he said in a statement.

[a one billion dollar cut to transportation work? does that me we should expect a reduction in the 48-cents a gallon tax supposedly collected for 'transportation' projects? with regard to the 'health care issue', I prefer Tom McClintock's take:

A Long Trip to the Hospital…

With the state budget adopted and California now on a collision course with another Gray-Davis sized fiscal crisis, what’s next on the Left’s agenda? Government health care, of course, modeled on Canada’s socialist system. Soon every Californian can expect their local hospital to operate with the same courteous, competent, efficient service for which our government is renowned.

http://www.carepublic.com/blog.html?blog_id=171&frompage=latestblog&domain=tom_mcclintock