May 6, 2008

Governor's Big Spin

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested Tuesday that he will ask lawmakers to lease the California Lottery when he issues his revised budget proposal next week.

The governor spoke to reporters after celebrating a $70 million donation to the California Community Colleges, offering the lottery lease as a "creative" solution to raise revenues for schools and other state services.

Schwarzenegger said last week the budget deficit could be as large as $20 billion in the next fiscal year, though he conceded Tuesday "the numbers change all the time."

"I will be making a proposal and it will show that we will have some severe cuts," Schwarzenegger said, "and also I will recommend to go and be creative and look for revenues, because we have the lottery out there. And as you know, I have now for a long time recommended that we use the lottery, that we license it out, and we really can produce much more money for the state, for education and other areas. And I think that now because we are in an emergency situation, legislators are looking at it in a much more serious way, which I welcome.”

Gubernatorial press secretary Aaron McLear said there have been no final decisions on what the May revision will include.

Posted by Kevin Yamamura on May 6, 2008 2:22 PM