Hours after Senate leader Don Perata declared that borrowing was not on the Senate leadership's budget agenda, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass issued a statement of her own saying borrowing should not "be part of the final solution" for the budget.
Here's Bass' statement in full:
"Major borrowing is not part of the Democratic budget plan, and we don't believe it should be part of the final solution. Our proposal balances the budget with a mix of billions of dollars in difficult spending cuts and new revenues, similar to those proposed by a previous Republican governor. It's gimmick-free and honest. It closes our budget gap in a straight-forward manner, and eliminates out-year deficits."
"We don't have any easy options before us and the clock is ticking. We are continuing to make progress in solving our current budget problems and creating a tax modernization commission that will provide us a path to help us avoid budget train wrecks in the years ahead."
Assemblymember John Laird, chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, issued his own statement:
"The Assembly, the Senate, and now the Conference Committee representing them both, have proposed budgets that are balanced in this year, balanced for the foreseeable future, and which do not rely on borrowing. Any proposal to borrow from voter-approved propositions is not coming from those of us who want to balance the budget without borrowing or gimmicks."
@Nyx.CommentBody@