HOPEFULS DISCUSS BUDGET DEFICIT
By Zain Shauk

Glendale News Press , CA
March 25 2010

One Republican, three Democrats seeking seat in Assembly pitch ways
to fill gap.

BURBANK — The four candidates vying to fill a vacancy in the 43rd
Assembly District made their pitches to voters Wednesday during a
televised forum that touched on the state’s budget deficit, prison
overcrowding, jobs and the environment.

Democrats in the forum, hosted at Burbank City Hall by the League of
Women Voters of Glendale/Burbank, offered their ideas for plugging
holes in the state’s budget with new revenues. The lone Republican
in the race, Sunder Ramani, called for reevaluating the state’s
priorities in order to solve its perennial deficit problem using
existing resources, although he agreed with Democrats Mike Gatto,
Chahe Keuroghelian and Nayiri Nahabedian on other issues.

All of the candidates opposed the state’s current system for approving
a budget with a two-thirds majority vote of the Legislature, a process
some said was unnecessary. Others argued the process resulted in
deal-making in order to pass a budget.

"The two-thirds supermajority that’s being required is strangling us,"
Nahabedian said, "and that is something that we need to take a look
at in order to deal with every single one of these cuts."

Nahabedian, a Glendale school board member, argued that budget
constraints perpetuated by the two-thirds vote requirement were
hurting students and teachers.

Gatto, an attorney, also attacked the two-thirds voting requirement,
but called for an oil severance tax to be instituted in California,
a change that could provide billions of dollars in additional revenues
for the state even if a two-thirds majority vote remains in place,
he said.

Every other oil-producing state has an oil severance tax, he said.

"This is not a Democratic issue," Gatto said. "It’s not a Republican
issue. It’s a common-sense issue."

Nahabedian proposed adding more incentives for small businesses to
make hires and stimulate growth, like the state’s recently adopted tax
incentives for local film production. Keuroghelian, known mostly as
a host of an Armenian-language local access cable show, said foreign
countries could offer additional revenue opportunities to California
if the state pursued more trade relationships and investments from
oil-rich countries.

Ramani, a small-business owner, argued that confused priorities were
more of a problem for California than a shortage of funds.

He compared the budget to an overloaded shopping cart, arguing
that legislators have not shown enough discretion in crafting their
budget plan.

"They get to the checkout line and they can’t afford to pay for it all,
and nobody wants to take any of their items out," Ramani said.

"That’s how we balance the budget."

ticles/2010/03/25/politics/gnp-forum032510.txt

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress