Schwarzenegger Budget Calls for Billions in New Spending + Fabian Nunez Info
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/national/11arnold.html
By JOHN M. BRODER
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 10 - Aided by a multibillion-dollar windfall in tax revenues, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a $125.6 billion election-year budget on Tuesday that would break from recent years of austerity and increase spending on education, health, prisons and public works without raising taxes.
The budget also maps out a multiyear, $222 billion program to build highways, transit systems, waterworks, classrooms and prison cells using existing state and federal money and $68 billion in new state bonds, $25 billion of which would be authorized in the coming fiscal year. The borrowing would require approval by voters and the Legislature.
This is the third budget Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has proposed since winning office in a recall election in 2003. After several years of anemic growth in state revenues and spending, steady growth in the state economy in the past year is allowing the governor to promote new spending for education, social services and long-neglected infrastructure projects as he starts his re-election campaign.
The proposed budget offers significant new spending on social programs and construction projects to please Democrats and their union sponsors while holding the line on taxes, a move necessary to prevent grumbling among Republicans. Many conservatives have been critical of the governor's move to the left after voters roundly rejected his so-called reform agenda in November.
The budget would increase general fund spending by $7.7 billion, to $91.5 billion, a jump of 8.4 percent from the current year. It includes $4.3 billion in additional spending on K-12 education and community colleges, and a $2 billion increase for highway projects. It eliminates planned increases in tuition for hundreds of thousands of students attending the University of California and California State University.
Despite stronger-than-expected tax revenues, the governor's plan projects a significant imbalance between spending and income - some $6 billion in the general fund alone. That deficit would be covered by excess tax funds collected this year that would carry into next year.
Mr. Schwarzenegger again asked the Legislature to give him the authority to make midyear budget cuts if revenue came in below projections. The Legislature rejected that request last year, and voters turned down a ballot proposition that would have given the governor such power.
"We have a growing economy and therefore more money is coming into our Treasury," the governor said at a news briefing on the budget plan. "But we still have this structural deficit, a process programmed to spend more money than it takes in. At a minimum we should restore the authority governors had until 1983, to make budget corrections before they get out of control."
Analysts said that Mr. Schwarzenegger was entering an election year with a fairly strong economic breeze at his back and with a politically astute focus on the generally uncontroversial issue of rebuilding the state's overburdened water and transportation systems.
Jaime A. Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said Mr. Schwarzenegger was moving into Democratic turf to neutralize the Legislature and regain the centrist support that helped him win office.
"I think it's strategically and politically a good move to be talking about the infrastructure projects that he wants his administration to focus on over the next four months or four years," Mr. Regalado said.
- The Assembly speaker, Fabian Nuñez, a Democrat from Los Angeles, reserved judgment on much of the governor's budget but was critical of roughly $200 million in cuts for several welfare programs.
"Under this budget, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," Mr. Nuñez said in televised comments after the governor's remarks. "This budget pays lip service to the poor."
Mr. Schwarzenegger presented his budget sporting a fat lip held together by 15 stitches after a low-speed motorcycle accident over the weekend. He was driving his Harley-Davidson with his 12-year-old son, Patrick, in a sidecar when a car backed into the street in front of him.
The governor acknowledged that although he had been riding a motorcycle for years, he had never obtained the required California operating permit, saying he "never really thought about it."
He discussed the incident, and the political problems it posed, in remarks at the beginning of his budget briefing.
"The car was right there in front of me," he said. "I knew if I would turn left, the Republicans would get mad at me. If I turned right, my wife would get mad at me. So I crashed right into the car."
The governor's wife is Maria Shriver, a Democrat and a niece of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Copyright 2006The New York Times
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"I have declared war on Schwarzenegger" says Fabian Nunez
New Speaker of the California Assembly vows to terminate the 'terminator' if he continues with his anti-immigrant ways
by Hector Carreon / La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - December 8, 2003 - (ACN) Fabian Nunez, who was just sworn into office as Assemblyman for the Los Angeles 46th district on December 2002, has risen rapidly. In his freshman year, 36 year old Nunez was appointed Majority Whip, making history as one of the youngest members to hold the position. Now he is about to take over the Speakership of the 80 member Alta California Assembly next month.
Fabian Nunez first came into prominence in the Mexican-American community in 1994 when he led a 100,000 voter movement to defeat the anti-Mexican Proposition 187 which among others things proposed to deny public school education and medical care to children of immigrant parents. When an anti-immigrant Republican coalition managed to pass the proposition, Fabian Nunez, was one of the principal Mexican-American leaders that, three years later, persuaded the California Supreme Court to declare Proposition 187 unconstitutional.
In an interview with Alejandro Sanchez of La Cronica newspaper of Mexico City, Fabian Nunez said that he is ready to wage political war on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger if he continues implementing policies that targets immigrants and "Californios". It looks like Alta California is going to see lots of fireworks in Sacramento next year.
One of the first things that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did when he took office was to repeal SB 60, a law that allowed tourists, temporary visitors and undocumented workers in California to apply for an automobile driver's license. The repeal was actually meant to target Mexican immigrants. The campaign to repeal SB 60 was led by people like ex-Governor of California Peter Wilson and other xenophobes. The California Republican Assembly ran a series of viciously racist adds meant to demean the large Mexican-American population. One notorious add is published at "Mexifornia Bandido".
Also, Schwarzenegger teamed up, during his campaign, with one of the most disliked politicians in the history of Alta California, ex-Governor Peter Wilson. Schwarzenegger demonstrated his fond feelings for this bigot in a disgusting photograph where he is shown smooching with Peter Wilson. The photograph, published at "Schwarzenegger smooching Wilson" clearly shows Schwarzenegger groping Peter Wilson's derriere.
Alta California Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez, who lived the first eight years of his life in Baja California, said to La Cronica, "Ya le declare personalmente la guerra política a Schwarzenegger… para eso me eligieron mis companeros" ( I have already personally declared political war on Schwarzenegger . . . that is the reason I was elected by my supporters). "Es solo el inicio de las confrontaciones con el gobernador Schwarzenegger. En una reunión que tuve con el se lo adverti y le adelante que los democratas no vamos a dejar que pisotee nuestros principios, que son defender a los migrantes y a los californianos" ( This is only the beginning of the confrontations with Governor Schwarzenegger. In a meeting I had with him, I advised him that the Democrats will not allow him to step on our principles which are to defend the rights of immigrants and the Californios).
Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Nunez, had very humble beginnings. He is the son of a seamstress and a day laborer. He was brought up in the mostly Mexican-American community of San Diego called Logan Heights. He is one of twelve children from a Mexican immigrant family. Fabian Nunez has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Education from Pitzer College and today lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three young children.
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Related Link:
http://www.aztlan.net/republicanracistcampaign.htm
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Website: Fabian Nunez ~ Speaker of the Assembly
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a46/mainpage.htm
Capitol Office
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0046
(916) 319-2046
District Office
320 West 4th Street
Room 1050
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 620-4646
E-Mail the Speaker
Assemblymember.Nunez@assembly.ca.gov
Dear Friends:
All Californians deserve access to good schools, quality healthcare and a government concerned about and responsive to their needs. When we meet in the Assembly, we come together as one, 80 people representing all of California. Everything we do must work toward the common needs of this great state.
With that in mind, this site is designed to give you up-to-date information about my work in the Assembly and provides access to other government resources and services.
Here you will be able to find out about legislation that addresses California's tenuous energy situation, protects consumers, creates jobs, improves the state's education system and shapes the state's fiscal future.
Thank you for visiting this web site and I encourage you to visit often. It will be updated frequently with the latest information.
Sincerely,
Fabian Núñez
Newsworthy
January 10, 2006 - Speaker Núñez's Statement on Governor's Budget Unveiling
January 9, 2006 - Speaker Names Members of Infrastructure Bond Conference Committee
Key Legislation
In addition to crafting a budget that is fiscally and socially responsible, Speaker Núñez's priorities include addressing California's energy needs, protecting the environment, solving California's transportation dilemma, guaranteeing a quality public education to all students and affordable quality healthcare.
Audio/Video Files:
January 6, 2006 - Speaker Núñez and President pro Tempore Perata Respond to the Governor’s State of the State with a Call for Unity
November 18, 2005 - Speaker Calls for New Investments for California’s Infrastructure in Weekly Radio Address
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