Mayor disappointed in budget outcome
Less than nine hours after Wednesday's City Council meeting, the state Legislature passed a budget that seemed to please few.Speaking by phone from Sacramento Thursday, Mayor Don Kurth, a Republican, said he wasn't happy at all with a budget that included $12 billion worth of tax hikes.
"We send these people to Sacramento to solve these problems but these are stop-gap measures that don't solve the problems inherent in the budget," Kurth said. "The spending policies that brought us into this mess ... we still have them. It looks to me, they've stuck their finger in the dike but there are still cracks in the dam."
But didn't we make some major cuts, too? Aren't we curbing education and healthcare spending -- something Republicans wanted?
"That's great but they're just throwing us the bone," Kurth said.
Don's right about those do-nothings in Sacramento and their profligate ways. Heck, I know where the Legislature could cut $6 billion.
The state could stop sending $6 billion of the car tax to cities and counties every year to make up for Prop 13 losses.
Or, um, is that not the type of spending cut the mayor had in mind?
What constituency is Mayor Kurth serving? The citizens of Rancho Cucamonga, or himself?