SACRAMENTO - Assemblywoman Anna Caballero today issued the following statement on the Legislature’s passage of eight bills that achieve $1.4 billion in budget cuts, authorize the sale of voter-approved economic recovery bond, and contain various funding solutions designed to reduce the state’s $14.4 billion current and projected deficit:

“What we did today was avoid the really senseless across-the-board cuts that the governor proposed.  But we still cut or deferred funding for important programs that will hurt people in my district and throughout California.

“These and other cuts will reduce the deficit in half – turning a projected $3.7 billion current year deficit into a prudent $1 billion reserve. We’re slashing a projected $14.9 billion budget year deficit to $7.4 billion.

 “I understand that cuts must be made when the economy weakens and revenues fall short of our budget plans.  As Mayor of Salinas, I made tough cuts when times were tough.  But I didn’t come to Sacramento to slash education, health care and transportation services that help make California the 8th largest world economy. 

“I’ve been here a year now, and I’m convinced that we need to look at significant budget reform.

“I’m looking carefully at the recommendations that various budget reform commissions have made over the past years.  I’m meeting with my Democratic and Republican colleagues, people from think-tanks and budget specialists about our need for significant reform.

“I’m convinced that we need to think big about solutions.  We need to talk about designing a two-year budget process, creating spending caps, and changing the two-thirds vote requirement that leads to budget gridlock every year.

“We can’t cut our way out of the structural problems in this budget.  We can’t borrow out way out of our problems.

“It’s time we looked at the underlying reasons for the state’s ongoing budget problems and deal with them.”