Sacramento, Ca – Senator Ted Gaines (R-Roseville) issued the following statement regarding the Democrat majority-vote budget bill:

“Revenues shot up but the Legislature’s fiscal IQ stayed flat,” said Senator Gaines. “California has built a $340 billion wall of debt and liabilities and we need to route every single spare dollar towards paying it down. Instead we are paying for an absurd High Speed Rail project and committing to $900 million in new, ongoing spending. That’s a wasteful and incredibly shortsighted budget.”

California’s total state budget package will be roughly $254 billion in 2014-15, with $108 billion coming from the state’s general fund, which is nearly $12 billion more general fund spending than in the prior year. In addition, revenues from Prop. 30, sold to voters as a way of shoring up school funding, are being diverted to a variety of programs unrelated to education, with only $3.1 billion of the additional $7.4 billion going to K-14 classrooms.

“California is the most innovative state in the country, except when it comes to politics. No matter the problem, no matter the year, no matter the economy, the Democrat solution is always more spending,” said Senator Gaines. “In bad times they say it stimulates the economy, in good times it celebrates it. For the sake of the overtaxed Californians who are on the hook for $340 billion I want to ask: When is it a good time to pay off our debt and fund our pensions?”

Senator Ted Gaines represents the 1^st Senate District, which includes all or parts of Alpine, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Shasta, Sierra and Siskiyou counties.