California Budget Talks Continue as Impasse Nears Deadline

California Republican lawmakers negotiated through the weekend with Governor Jerry Brown and Democrats over whether to extend more than $9 billion of expiring tax increases as a deadline to pass a budget looms.

The talks followed the June 10 defeat in the Senate of a proposal by Democrats to push the expiration date back a year. The bridge financing is needed, Brown has said, to preserve revenue pending the outcome of a yet-to-be-determined statewide referendum on whether to keep the taxes for five years. Republicans say the extensions would harm California’s economy.