California has billions in extra money. Why don’t taxpayers get a refund?

California state government has so much money this year that it’s opening two new savings accounts so it can keep socking away even more cash for the rainy day that Gov. Jerry Brown says is just over the horizon.

That tactic — setting a course to pile up $16 billion in savings over the next 12 months — should reassure taxpayers that cuts to government services won’t be as severe as they were a decade ago when the state’s economy plummeted into the Great Recession.

But the money is inviting a different kind ofpolitical problem for majority Democrats. It could be used to fuel the campaign that would repeal the 12-cents-a-gallon gas tax that they and Brown championed last year to lock in $52 billion in road repair funding for the next decade.

 

Read more at the SacBee

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