Crossposted at Daily Kos

The Scrooge Party delivers a lump of coal to Californians the week before Christmas and Hanukkah in the form of their spending cuts plan. $22 billion in cuts is what they propose, cuts that would throw California into an outright economic depression by destroying what remains of the safety net, delivering a crippling blow to public education and public transportation, and attacking Californians too sick or disabled to defend themselves.

Some of the more outrageous demands:

Medi-Cal (1) Reduce eligibility for working families and immigrants, (2) eliminate certain optional benefits, including, optometry and psychology, and (3) reduce reimbursement rates for public hospitals

$406.1 million

Eliminate State Funding for Transit Agencies

$459.6 million

Proposition 98 (K-14) – Fund education at minimum guarantee under voter-approved Prop. 98, provide flexibility in education spending

$8.65 billion

Higher Education – 10 percent across-the-board reduction to University of

California, California State University and Hastings

$264.2 million

The Scrooges also proposed “new revenues” which are actually cuts to existing programs – raiding funding for mental health, for example, to balance the rest of the budget:

The Republican budget plan relies on $3.9 billion taken from Proposition 63, the measure voters approved in 2004 to fund mental health programs, as well as $2.1 billion taken from Proposition 10, the tobacco tax that funds children’s health programs.

Both programs have substantial reserves in the bank, and the Republicans propose going to the voters in a 2009 special election asking them to siphon away those reserves to help lower the state’s deficit. Advocates of the programs funded by those initiatives say the money is already earmarked for projects in the pipeline.

One wonders how the Bob Cratchits and Tiny Tims of California will react to this budget, a Dickensian act of profound irresponsibility that will not only worsen our economic crisis but permanently weaken public services.

But that is of course the goal. Public schools, mass transit, Medi-Cal, mental health programs – these programs and the Californians who depend on them have long been targets of the state’s Republican minority. The Scrooge Party wants them all to suffer for good, wants to use this budget deficit to settle old scores and deny a decent life and a decent future to most people in this state.

These cuts are the product of deranged minds, and cannot be allowed to stand.