Arnold and the car tax repeal!
City Controller Laura Chick warned Tuesday that Los Angeles officials must cut spending now or she will be forced to cancel checks to vendors and employees by the end of the fiscal year because of the loss of $150 million in state funding due to repeal of the tripled car tax.
Several counties and cities are suing the state of California for the lost revenues, “seeking to force it to compensate local governments for money lost from the car tax that was cut as his first act by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger”
Arnold plans an end run around the legislature, however –
“It’s of doubtful legality,” said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco). “He’s skating on very thin ice.”
The governor, Burton said, “made promises to the locals, so I guess he’s trying to keep them. But when we go to appropriate $3 billion in a deficiency, I don’t know where he’s going to get it.”
I will say that at least Arnold is doing something, however misguided, unlike the previous governor who sat like a slug in the background except when he was fund-raising. However the financial crisis in California is huge, and there are way more bills than income, and no easy solutions.