Legislature OKs Temporary Welfare Cut; Senate Rejects Two Proposed Tax Measures

Gov. George Deukmejian won a round of budget skirmishes Thursday when both houses of the Legislature approved a temporary cut in welfare benefit increases and the Senate defeated two tax measures Democrats sought to head off even deeper cuts.

The welfare benefits bill, which suspends a 4.6% increase in individual aid grants that was scheduled to go into effect Sunday, was approved 27 to 11 in the Senate and 54 to 7 in the Assembly.

Deukmejian, from the onset of his negotiations with Democratic leaders, has insisted that welfare benefit increases be part of the package of cuts he argues is necessary to close a $3.6-billion revenue gap. He is expected to sign the bill.

Over a full year, the welfare benefit increases would cost the state $114 million. In line for the benefit increases are nearly 2 million people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children, most of them women and children. The 4.6% increase would have meant an extra $32 for a family of three receiving $694 a month under AFDC. Also affected by the bill would be inflation increases for support workers who provide in-home chores for the disabled.

All the votes against the welfare benefits bill were cast by rank-and-file Democrats. In both the Senate and Assembly, Democrats said they were outraged that the first budget cut would hit those called by Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Oakland) “the poorest and the weakest in society.”

But Democratic leaders, while refusing to go along with the governor on the full-year cut, pushed the legislation, arguing the one-month reduction was needed to allow negotiations with the governor to continue and give them more options in striking a budget deal.

“I feel we have no choice,” said Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles).

The tax measures were designed to test the willingness of the Legislature to go along with tax hikes that Democrats are fighting for as an alternative to the billions in budget cuts Deukmejian wants to make in health, welfare, education and other programs.

Needing 27 votes, or a two-thirds majority, in the Senate, a measure to raise $840 million by adjusting personal income tax brackets was defeated 22 to 14. The measure would have “squeezed” income tax brackets together so that more taxpayers would have been pushed into higher brackets.

The second tax measure, designed to raise $350 million by increasing motor vehicle license fees, went down 23 to 6.

Roberti, after the emotional debate on the tax and welfare bills, said, “At some point in time, (Democrats) have to do what we are saying we are willing to do, and that is raise revenue to save education and health programs and counties which administer health programs.”

In another budget development, the Assembly passed and sent to Deukmejian an emergency $332-million budget bill that, among other things, will allow the state to send out delayed tax refunds and renter’s credit payments to more than 200,000 Californians, and make a late payment to doctors, hospitals and other providers in the state-financed Medi-Cal program.

The bill, delayed for weeks because it also provides funds for abortions for poor women, malathion spraying, and the state’s program to ban assault weapons, passed 55 to 16 with surprisingly little debate. Deukmejian is expected to sign the bill within days.

A spokesman for the Franchise Tax Board said that once the governor signs the legislation, the checks will go out “as soon as humanly possible,” predicting the checks may be in the mail by mid-July.