"I am asking people to save more for their retirement, not contributing to fiscal retrenchment or paying off debt.
Among the justifications offered for this type of deduction, the most widely accepted is that it contributes to fiscal coordination in a federal system and avoids extremely high rates in the case of overlapping income taxes.
Mr. Rehn also said the commission's report on common bonds guaranteed by some or all euro zone members would examine whether such bonds "could contribute to fiscal discipline and increase liquidity in the bond markets in Europe so that the countries enjoying highest credit rating standards would not see their borrowing costs" rise, Mr. Rehn said.
This, in turn, would induce "proportional increases in tax revenues," thereby "contributing to fiscal sustainability, while enabling the Greek government to exercise spending discipline without further shrinking the social economy".
In practice, the government's fiscal policy was opaque and contributed to massive fiscal instability.
Among his detractors, those who contributed to his fiscal crunch came in for the roughest drubbings.
In California, a planned $1.9 billion bond sale for state employees' pensions contributed to the fiscal uproar that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.
But both Republicans and Democrats refused, saying that in past years Mr. Gulotta had contributed to the fiscal crisis by overestimating revenues.
The government was easily re-elected in 2009, but the new spending contributed to a fiscal deficit that rose to roughly 6 percent, from about 2 percent the previous year.
After today's votes, Ms. Jacobs said her Republican colleagues had missed a chance to break with Mr. Gulotta's budgeting ways, which both sides in the Legislature agree contributed to the fiscal crisis.
