(Sacramento) - Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) announced today that he was named by Assembly Speaker John Perez to the Budget Conference Committee late Tuesday.  The committee, consisting of 5 Assembly-members and 5 Senators, convened this morning to begin solving the projected $26 billion budget deficit.

"I am pleased to once again join this conference committee, as we begin to deliberate on this very difficult spending plan," commented Nielsen in his opening remarks.  "As we proceed, we must be very careful and very prudent in our actions.  There are several issues that I have great concerns with.  We are being asked to extend 'temporary' tax increases by another 5 years, but there have been no guarantees that the cuts we are making will be for longer than 1 year. These taxes were promised to the voters to be only for 2 years, but now are being extended to 7 years?  So much for government keeping its promises.  This is a recipe for auto-pilot spending in future years and impedes, rather than stimulates, jobs and economic growth." 

"We must also be very careful with the proposed realignment program.  We must not shift the burden of all these massive mandates and programs on local governments and force them to raise taxes to pay for it all, while compromising justice and public safety.  I stand ready to tackle these issues and others with my fellow colleagues, and hope we can find some common sense proposals and reforms to make government more citizen-friendly."