Davis Seals the Deal With a Final Twist

Even as lawmakers debated the details of the budget, Gov. Gray Davis was claiming credit Thursday for engineering a deal that includes $2.7 billion in tax cuts and rebates.

Davis sealed the massive document as his own with his last-minute push to scrap a plan that would have raised the dependent-care credit by about $125. It was in the plan as late as Wednesday. But when lawmakers arrived at the Capitol on Thursday prepared to vote on the $100-billion document, the provision was gone.

The decision to block it came in a meeting Wednesday attended by several lawmakers.

Davis, they said, appeared to be balking at the plan because it wasn’t his idea. What’s more, it came from the Republicans, in the person of Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, leader of the state Senate’s GOP membership. Brulte is among the Republicans’ best strategists, and the one who will lead their election effort this fall.

“The governor didn’t think Jim Brulte had a good idea,” said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco). “It was more than a request [to drop the dependent credit]. It was like a demand.”

For his part, Davis said his own plan was simply the best policy. Even though the cut in the income tax rate will disproportionately benefit wealthy Californians, it “would reach more people.” Coupled with the child care credit, he said, his tax package was “a more balanced approach” than the one offered by Republicans.

The child care credit had been debated in committee hearings, but was languishing.

Women in the Legislature, led by Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) and Assemblywoman Lynne Leach (R-Walnut Creek), had been pushing for a child care credit. “The women’s caucus made child care its priority,” Bowen said, adding that members had been writing letters and talking to Davis and legislative leaders about it for weeks.

By contrast, the income tax cut, which would benefit mostly upper-income Californians, was not a subject of serious debate this year.

“Nobody has ever argued that the wealthy need a tax cut, and yet the income tax cut does exactly that,” said Lenny Goldberg of the labor-backed California Tax Reform Assn.