At a press conference last week, Assembly Speaker John Pérez
said there's a reason he can't talk publicly about budget
negotiations.
"You don't take a half-baked idea and bring it forward,
you figure out how to fully bake it."
So, the Republican Party decided to give the speaker an easy
bake oven. Party spokesman Mark Standriff showed off the
mini-kitchen unit in front of the capitol building. He says they
also have a recipe to go with it.
"You need to roll out a thin bureaucratic crust, choose
your ingredients for your pie filling from the stuff you already
have on hand rather than spending money that you don't have."
Standriff says the Democrats want to raise taxes and spend
more money to close the 19 billion dollar budget gap. Around the
corner, the Democratic Party's Tenoch Flores showed off a table
with three fully baked pies, and three empty pie shells.
"Over here on this side of the table which is the
Democratic plan for the budget which is full of ideas, it protects
jobs, it protects child care, it protects education funding, and
over is here we see the Republican plan. As you can see there's not
much there and that's because they haven't presented any
ideas."
Republicans largely support Governor Schwarzenegger's budget,
which includes deep cuts to welfare. Democrats oppose those. The
state budget is now three weeks late. At the state capitol, I'm Ida
Lieszkovszky.
