Assemblywoman Mimi Walters (R – Laguna Hills) today held a press conference at the State Capitol along with Senator Tom McClintock (R – Thousand Oaks) and Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform to announce that the option of raising taxes in the 2007-2008 State Budget is officially “off the table.”
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a national taxpayer watch group, asks candidates and elected officials throughout the nation to sign a pledge committing to their constituencies that they will not raise taxes. Last month, on behalf of ATR, Assemblywoman Walters gathered signatures from all but one of her Assembly Republican colleagues who signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
“As the Vice-Chair of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, I am pleased to announce that 46 members of the Legislature have signed Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge not to increase taxes,” Assemblywoman Mimi Walters said at the hearing. “Therefore, the option of raising taxes no longer exists.”
In order for the Legislature to raise taxes in California, two-thirds must vote to support a tax increase; six Assembly Republicans and two Senate Republicans must vote with the Democrats. By gathering 31 signatories to the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in the State Assembly and fifteen in the State Senate, it has become a virtual impossibility for the State Legislature to raise taxes.
“Anyone who is fiscally responsible knows that you can’t spend more than you make without serious financial problems,” Assemblywoman Walters continued. “Our State, indeed, has serious financial problems. We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
In attendance at the press conference were; Assemblywoman Mimi Walters, Senator Tom McClintock, Grover Norquist, Jon Coupal with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Senator Tom Harman, Senator Sam Aanestad, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Assemblyman Joel Anderson, Assemblyman Jim Silva, Assemblyman Van Tran, and Assemblyman Doug La Malfa.
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