After the budget deal was done, Arnold reached for his blue pencil. The blue pencil was not kind to California, and for some it meant the difference between getting back on their feet, and struggling to survive…or worse.
The list of whom the $1b in cuts attacks reads like a who’s who of the most vulnerable Californians. Foster children, the disabled, AIDS patients, struggling working families, you name it, Arnold attacked.
Schwarzenegger sliced $962 million from the spending plan sent to him by the Legislature 100 days after the start of the fiscal year July 1.
In most cases, the governor explained his line-item vetoes with boilerplate language saying the cuts were necessary to “help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources and to build a prudent reserve.” In some cases Schwarzenegger pointed out that alternative funding might be available to blunt the effect of his reductions, or suggested that California will seek federal money to offset the loss of state dollars.
But those explanations did not satisfy the governor’s many critics, some of whom felt betrayed by his actions.
Sarah Jimenez, communications director for the County Welfare Directors Association, released a statement from the group calling Schwarzenegger a “hypocrite.” She noted that just last week, the governor signed Assembly Bill 12, a bill extending services to youth in foster care until age 21, and spoke about his commitment to children.(Healthy Cal)
While Schwarzenegger points out that many of these cuts may be offset by other sources of revenue, many will not. CalWORKS has now been cut to a hollow shell of its former self. It was once a model for the type of welfare reform that the neoliberals, Clinton and many Republicans, said they could support. Now that the Right has moved far to the right of their 1980s counterparts, that is completely out of fashion. That it was successful at both stabilizing families and getting members of the community back into the work force seems to be secondary at this point.
Foster children will continue to be left for the most part to fend for themselves as they age out of the system, and AIDS patients have to hope that pharma wants to continue to get the federal match. It’s government by hope and prayer, not a productive system for sustainable government.
That Arnold is a rich bastard with contempt for those who are neither rich nor famous was obvious to me before he ran for governor. The good & wise people of California, including some of California’s most vulnerable, elected him twice. This is what we get.
Now, it seems, plenty of Californians want to do it again. Get a rich person with no experience in politics and a clear agenda for corporations and rich people. The good & wise people of California, including some of California’s most vulnerable, appear willing to vote for her or to stay home and allow others to decide the question.
If California’s most vulnerable would simply vote and vote a straight Democratic ticket we wouldn’t have these problems. We’d have problems, for sure, but not these.
60,000 welfare to work families that rely on Calworks assistance to pay for childcare while they go to work will be forced to quite work and go back on full time public assistance because childcare in CA is so expensive.
Thousands of childcare providers will also go out of business and have to go on unemployment.
Is this really a cost saving?
Schwarzenegger is coward pure and simple. He makes these cuts and jets off to Russia to bask in some movie star adulation from people that have no clue what he has done to California. All during the budget standoff he made a big show of meeting his buddies at various chambers of commerce in the state. Did he ever bother to a have a town hall with people on CalWorks or IHSS? Or laid off teachers? or state employees with foreclosed homes?
Follow the $… in 1990 California received 89 cents back in Fed spending for every $1 sent to DC in taxes. In 2000 this had dropped to 81 cents back; by 2005 dropped to 78 cents back…. Washington is doling out our people’s money to OTHER STATES!
If we maintained that 89% rate we had enjoyed every year before 1990, California would have a balanced budget, a rainy day fund and $4-$9 BILLION for new spending every year!
WASHINGTON DC is screwing California at the expense of other states. Boxer, Feinstein and the Congressional reps have got to be more effective here.
What says you?