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Because no budget has been approved for the fiscal year that starts July 1, however, the pay panel cannot know how workers will be affected.
Commissioner Scott Somers failed to win support for a 5 percent pay cut Wednesday. Murray later said he could support a cut of up to 10 percent.
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The budget stalemate and endless back-and-forth chess moves might advance a political career or push a partisan agenda, but it's a cruel game for the rest of us. Until we end this unhealthy scenario, social service agencies will be scrambling to piece together services for the vulnerable and at-risk, focusing on bridge loans and gap finances rather than providing care to those in need.
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But deadlines are arbitrary, especially when the people in charge can choose to ignore them. To no one's surprise, the Legislature will fail to meet its constitutional duty to approve a budget and send it to the governor by the end of today.
To be sure, some legislators are working long hours on the budget. The two-house conference made up of senators and assembly members is picking through the document line by line. But from all signs, this year's impasse will last long into the summer, and that is not good.
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Assembly Republican leader Martin Garrick is clearing his schedule for a long impasse, if necessary. A vacation? "Next year," he said.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, is apparently ready for whatever happens: "I'm not making vacation plans."
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By enacting the bailout and cutting taxes, Brown threw the budget into an operational deficit that is the direct ancestor of today's chronic fiscal crisis. And he should be held accountable for that expedient, self-serving spasm of irresponsibility.
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