BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – Former Gov. Pete Wilson said Monday that he opposes a temporary sales tax increase proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and dismissed comparisons between his own tax-infused 1991 budget and the current one.
Wilson said he opposes the tax increase because he believes the state engaged in too much deficit spending under his successor, Gov. Gray Davis, and has not cut programs enough since then. The former two-term Republican governor addressed reporters after speaking in place of Schwarzenegger at a breakfast for California delegates to the Republican National Convention.
"One of the starting points for them might be to go back to what the spending was at the end of '98 and look at how it spiked way past growth in population and inflation," he said. "And then start to make some cuts."
Schwarzenegger has proposed a 1-cent hike in the state sales tax for three years to help resolve the state's $15.2 billion budget shortfall in a $101 billion spending plan. The proposal also would decrease the sales tax below the current rate after three years.
"If you're going to do any tax, that's the right one, but I just disagree," Wilson said. "No. 1, we're already a high-tax state. I mean, that's the problem."
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor has said that this budget requires California leaders to step out of their ideological corners to come to a compromise.
"The governor is showing that leadership and is urging the Legislature to do the same," McLear said.
Wilson said the current budget deficit is not nearly as large a burden as he had to deal with in 1991, when he said the state was in a worse economic downturn and the budget gap grew to one-third of the state's general fund. He signed a budget with $7 billion in tax increases and $5 billion in cuts that year.
""The situation was very different," Wilson said. "When we had to do that, we weren't engaged in deficit spending, and that's what we determined we would not engage in. But at the time, the gap from the recession – almost a depression – was so severe that it actually took one-third of the revenues of the entire general fund."
Schwarzenegger will not attend the convention because the state's budget remains unresolved. Wilson likewise missed the national GOP convention in 1992 during a long budget dispute. "The reason he's not here is the reason I wasn't here in '92," Wilson said. "The attitude of the Democratic majorities has not changed. They are for spending and they are for tax increases."
Call Kevin Yamamura, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5548.
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