California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill to eliminate an estimated $46.8 billion deficit, but several Republican lawmakers say they were left out of negotiations.
Lawmakers passed the budget on Wednesday after Governor Newsom and legislative leaders reached an agreement that included concessions on both sides and some wins.
The budget aims to close the deficit through $16 billion in spending cuts and temporary tax increases on some businesses.
Governor Newsom praised the proposed budget as “responsible,” saying it would “prepare for the future while investing in essential programs that benefit millions of Californians every day.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters after the presidential debate between President Biden and former Republican presidential nominee Trump, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
“My careful stewardship of the budget over the past few years has brought us to this moment while protecting the progress we’ve made on housing, homelessness, education, health care and other priorities that matter so much to Californians,” Newsom said.
But some Republicans say they’ve been left out of the negotiations altogether. Republican Sen. Roger Niello of Fair Oaks, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Financial Review Committee, derided the plan as a “majority party budget.” He told Fox News Digital he first learned about the plan through an X post.
Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. (Screenshot/NBC)
“While this budget certainly reflects the priorities of the majority party, it ignores the priorities of our state’s eight million residents because none of my Republican colleagues were involved in crafting the budget,” Niello said.
The Republican also called the budget proposal “nominal balanced but unsustainable.”
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“We have failed to curb the irresponsible growth of government spending over the past decade,” Niello said, “relying on budget gimmicks, dipping into savings and burdening future generations with debt.”
Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones of San Diego argued that Californians represented by Republicans in the Legislature are effectively denied a voice.
“California senators, Democrat and Republican, represent nearly a million residents, and each of those million residents should have a say in what happens in the Legislature with regards to the budget,” Niello said.
He accused his Democratic colleagues of playing “shadow games with accounting” instead of “holding California’s checkbook accountable.”
State Capitol An aerial view of the California State Capitol in Sacramento. Lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill that would allow murderers serving life sentences to petition for resentencing. (Universal Image Group via Getty Images)
“They were moving money around, shoving it around, stealing from kids with disabilities, taking money away from so many needed services, and funding unnecessary social experiments and pet projects,” he said. “It’s incomprehensible, but it’s real.”
The deficit for 2023 is about $32 billion, with a larger deficit this year and even larger deficits projected for the future in the nation’s most populous state.
Saturday’s signing came just two years after Governor Newsom and Democratic lawmakers were boasting about a total surplus of more than $100 billion, the result of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief and a progressive tax system that has generated huge amounts of revenue from the state’s wealthiest residents.
But that revenue surge was short-lived as an inflationary economic slowdown led to rising unemployment and a slowdown in the tech industry that had been the state’s growth engine. Newsom’s administration then badly miscalculated how much money California would have last year by extending the tax-filing deadline by seven months.
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The budget includes an agreement between Governor Newsom and lawmakers to amend the California Constitution to allow the state to set aside more money in reserves to protect against future funding shortfalls.
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office but did not receive a response.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
