California Budget: Poll shows support for extending taxes

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Registered voters support Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget push for a special election on taxes and show early support for extending increased levies on themselves, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday.

The poll results come on the day state lawmakers are set to vote on a budget package to tackle California’s more than $25-billion deficit, though no agreement has been reached and the plan is expected to fall short of passage.

About 61% of registered voters said they favor a special election on taxes, according to the poll, and Brown is scrambling to find the four GOP votes -- two in the Assembly, two in the Senate -- he needs to place tax extensions on the ballot.

The Field Poll shows that Brown faces a critical deadline in the coming days. Voters are far more willing to extend current temporary taxes than they are to raise new levies, the poll shows. All the current tax extensions will have expired by July 1, and Brown needs the Legislature to call a special election soon to place a measure on a June ballot before the taxes are off the books.

If presented with a measure to extend temporary sales, income and vehicle taxes, 58% of registered voters endorse it, according to the poll. But voters are not bullish on raising taxes in general; 55% of those polled said they are not willing to pay higher taxes to balance the budget.

The poll, in which 898 registered voters were interviewed in early March and late February, also showed that voters are most opposed to additional cuts to public education, with 62% calling such reductions “very harmful.”

The only two areas of spending that a majority voters supported cutting were the courts (59%) and the prisons (59%).

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento