Democrats Plan Blitz to Argue for Taxes Over Cuts in Budget

Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson said Wednesday that Democrats next week will launch a statewide “Save California” blitz to persuade police, firefighters and local officials to support higher taxes to help balance the state budget.

Wesson said that majority Democrats will scatter to “every corner of the state” in a campaign to show that a Democratic plan to align the budget, including a half-cent sales tax increase that Republicans adamantly oppose, would be preferable to the “dire consequences” of deep budget cuts advanced by GOP “extremists.”

Likening the statewide drive to a presidential campaign blitz, Wesson said his members will leave Sacramento for the three-day effort starting Monday. “Wherever there is a group of three people, you’ll find us,” he told reporters.

He said Democrats hope that lobbying local decision-makers, police officers, sheriffs, county supervisors and school board trustees would persuade them to pressure legislative Republicans to vote for the Democratic program. The unprecedented state budget shortfall is estimated by Gov. Gray Davis to total as much as $38 billion.

A spokesman for Assembly GOP leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks, however, dismissed the Democratic “Save California” campaign as a desperation move. “Democrats are essentially waving the white flag,” said Peter DeMarco.

DeMarco said the Democrats’ energy would be better spent “doing the job voters elected them to do” by remaining in the Capitol and working around the clock to produce a budget by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

Democrats in the Legislature need at least a handful of Republican votes in each house to pass a state budget by the constitutionally required two-thirds vote. But Republicans have insisted they will not vote for a budget plan that includes a tax increase.

The road show will be the second time that Assembly Democrats have taken their lobbying campaign statewide. Earlier in the spring, they held a series of “town hall” meetings, but some of the witnesses who testified were handpicked in advance.

The Democratic proposal to align the budget includes spending cuts in state programs, an increase in the vehicle license fee paid by car owners and a $10-billion loan that would be repaid with the sales tax increase.

Republicans have united to fight any tax hikes or substantial increases in fees. They assert that the budget can be balanced by cutting programs, borrowing and -- like the Democratic proposal -- stretching out repayment into future years.

Wall Street, whose rating houses have already significantly lowered California’s credit rating, have warned that unless the state gets its finances in order quickly, it runs the risk of incurring even more red ink by being charged higher rates for loans.

*

Times staff writer Nancy Vogel contributed to this report.