California Democrats passed a fake budget so they could get paid. Taxpayers have to wait -

BY JOSH GOHLKE UPDATED JUNE 15, 2022 9:05 AM

Sacramento Democrats are still in a stalemate over inflation relief.

California lawmakers this week passed another behemoth state budget, we’re told, meeting the legal deadline to send the governor the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in a couple of weeks. Except they didn’t. Variously described as a “blueprint,” “framework” or “placeholder,” the budget-ish document contained in the bills passed by both chambers Monday is apparently enough to meet the voter-ratified requirement that lawmakers approve a budget by June 15 or forfeit their salaries until they get their act together. And it’s certainly reassuring that no legislator will have to cancel Father’s Day brunch for lack of a paycheck.

But the fake budget leaves large swaths of the actual budget yet to be determined through further negotiations between Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom, most prominently the shape of inflation relief payments that all sides say they’re determined to provide.

A Newsom spokesman congratulated the Legislature by attacking its “massive ongoing spending” and failure to put “more money into state reserves,” a bold criticism given that the Legislature dedicates $700 million more to reserves than the governor proposed. In fact, the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office “strongly” warned that Newsom’s budget didn’t put enough in reserve and thereby threatened to throw the state over a “fiscal cliff.” At the heart of the intra-Democratic dispute is inflation relief, which could be the budget’s most broadly felt impact if it ever happens.

State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon hope to send $200 to members of households making up to $250,000 a year, all but the richest 10%. Newsom, meanwhile, wants to send $400 per vehicle to every registered owner up to a maximum of two cars per customer, cutting out only those poor wretches forced to contend with public transit. That and other differences will have to be cleared up by yet another bill passed in the numbered days remaining in the current fiscal year. Still more controversies within and beyond the budget will likely be resolved by so-called budget “trailer” bills passed in the new fiscal year, which serve not only to fudge the budget but also to make all kinds of other policy without the usual rules, debate and scrutiny.

This isn’t just a study in how budgeting and other standards approved by the voters can devolve into so much Capitol kabuki. The readiness to let this budgetary disagreement linger also undercuts the ruling Democrats’ claims to be responding to the urgent needs of taxpayers battered by soaring gas, food and other prices. Then again, so do the proposals’ broad definitions of neediness, especially Newsom’s.

This stalemate has now dragged on for three months, which is particularly ironic given that part of the argument allegedly concerns which plan would get the checks out faster. The glacial negotiations make it that much more likely that whatever money arrives will show up shortly before the fall election, the timing of which appears to be far more salient for the state’s politicians than any lightly obeyed statutory deadline.