"Strong revenues allow us to make investments that ensure our state's unparalleled prosperity touches all Californians," he said. "That includes strengthening social infrastructure to lift families from homelessness and poverty, opening the door to more educational opportunities from pre‐school to college, and closing the gap on universal health care. We accomplish all this while still having healthy reserves to protect these programs through the next economic downturn."
Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, lauded the fiscal responsibility of the budget.
"We have a rainy day fund. We have a regular reserve. We have a safety net reserve. We have an education reserve. And we're paying down debt and we're paying down pension liability. That's pretty significant, " Atkins said.
Not surprisingly, legislative Republicans were not as supportive of the spending plan. Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez said the budget is full of unnecessary projects.
"We are going to spend $3.5 million on a dog park, $500,000 on a sculpture garden, $10 million on a parking lot. Are those the values that we're setting today? That we want our constituents to know about?" she said. "Maybe our homeless or homeless veterans can sleep in the sculpture garden or the dog park. Because we're not providing for them. This is shameful."
Democratic lawmakers and Newsom were not able to reach an agreement on whether California should close some tax loopholes to pay for an expansion to the earned income tax credit for low-income residents. They have agreed to continue negotiations outside of the budget process.
