Monday, 17 December 2007 01:30
State Fiscal Emergency
Governor Schwarzenegger announced that he’ll
call a fiscal emergency in
January to deal with the state’s budget shortfall which Schwarzenegger is now
somewhere between 10 and 14 billion dollars. The governor said Thursday,
“What we have to do is fix the
budget system. The system itself needs to be fixed and I think that this is a
good year, this coming year to fix it. We are going to call this January
for a fiscal emergency.” Schwarzenegger called the state’s budget system a
“roller coaster” ride.
The declaration of a fiscal emergency forces
lawmakers to convene a special session to deal with the budget. In a
statement, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said "This is a serious step for a serious problem. We
look forward to seeing the specific proposals the governor is constitutionally
required to put forward in declaring a fiscal emergency. We are
committed to working with him to address the ongoing imbalance between the
services Californians require and the resources to fund them, and not drawing
any lines in the sand. This state of fiscal emergency strengthens the need to
address major threats to the state's general fund, namely our broken health
care system and the foreclosure crisis facing tens of thousands of California's
families." Capitol observers say raising taxes – including
the state’s vehicle license fee rollback that was a cornerstone of Schwarzenegger's
first election campaign – is likely to be part of the budget
discussions.