from NY Times:
Big Budget Gap? Call In the Big GuyBy RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: June 16, 2010
LOS ANGELES — And on the first day without a state budget, the men and women of God gathered in prayer at the Capitol to beg that he guide the mortals in closing a gap of biblical proportions.
A day after California lawmakers missed the June 15 deadline to have a budget in place, leaders representing 10 faiths sought “divine wisdom” on Wednesday, offered prayers and demanded that God occupy a seat at the budget negotiating table, joining the so-called Big 5: the governor and the four ranking Senate and Assembly leaders.
“We are calling for a Big 6,” said Sara Nichols of the Center for Spiritual Awareness, a former lobbyist and minister-in-training with the nondenominational religious community that organized the event. “We wanted to bless them and say, ‘They can do it.’ ”
It just may take a while; last year, the budget came in a month overdue, and the year before that, the budget was delivered a record-setting 85 days late, and the year before that — well, suffice to say it is more newsworthy when the $83 billion budget is on time.
This year, the fiscal misery befits Job: a $19 billion deficit, legislative gridlock that has defied even a governor with an action-hero past, that same governor mightily resisting the lame-duck mantle, and an election year that makes compromise — increasingly a four-letter word — harder still. All this while the state comptroller warns that it gets harder to pay bills the more the state pushes past the July 1 start of the fiscal year, just two weeks away. .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/17divine.html
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