You know things are bad for you when state spending climbs to $125 billion, and your budget is getting cut. So it goes for California welfare recipients in the governor's new state spending plan.
"California welfare recipients were the only group targeted for major cuts Tuesday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
presented a $125.6-billion budget that would increase payments to education and transportation by billions of dollars," write Evan Halper and Dan Morain for the Times.
"The election-year proposal was a
marked departure from past Schwarzenegger spending plans that called for reductions across the board. The small savings the state could achieve from suspending cost-of-living increases and cutting other programs for the poor would do little to address the multibillion-dollar deficits that California still faces for the next several years."
"
Welfare recipients would receive no cost-of-living increase, and county welfare agencies would get no new funds to cover pay raises, higher energy bills and inflationary costs. Under the governor's plan, a mother of two living in urban California would receive $723 a month through June 2007. A child-care program for welfare recipients in work programs also would be cut."
"
Assembly Democrats this time around are not going to stand idly by" while programs to aid the poor are cut, [Assembly Speaker
Fabain] Nuñez said. 'There is no question that the rich get richer and the poor, poorer' in the budget plan."
...and they'll draw a line in the sand right here.
Gary Delsohn reports
the speaker has an idea of where to find some of that money -- taking it away from the governor's own afterschool program initiative, Prop. 49, which is supposed to receive more than $400 million in state money this year.
"'I can tell you where a half-billion dollars is,' Núñez told reporters who asked where he would find the money to offset Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts in social service programs.
Even Republicans say the measure, which will take $428 million off the top of the general fund during the fiscal year that begins July 1, should be re-examined. A delay or scaling back would require approval by voters, but members of both parties say they want to talk about it in light of the state's other needs."
From the Just Couldn't Help Himself Files, Nuñez made an el-lip-tical allusion to the governor's motorcycle mishap in summing up his view of the budget: "This budget provides lip service to poor people," said the speaker. Cute.
Meanwhile,
no raises for our state employee readers are included in the spending plan. The Bee's Andy Furillo reports "Finance Director
Mike Genest said the administration didn't include money for raises because 'we don't want to presage what we plan to do at the negotiating table' with the nine unions representing 18 bargaining units that are already at the table or are about to take their seats across from the state's representatives."
(Unlike in 2004-05, when the administration "presaged" the state would take in $450 off the top of damage awards awarded to plaintiffs in court cases.)
In other words, the checkbook is still open, but you better negotiate fast.
Dan Weintraub has a
rolling tirade in his blog for the proposed budget, comparing the governor to
Gray Davis, which in budget parlance, is not a compliment. "No fat lip. Just fat. The other day the governor fell off his motorcycle. Today he fell off the wagon. The budget-balancing wagon, that is...
Schwarzenegger isn’t quite doing exactly what he accused Gray Davis of doing in 2003. But he’s getting closer every day."
Dan Walters argues that, through either spending cuts or taxes,
now is the time to fix the out-of-balance budget. "This is the year that Schwarzenegger and the Legislature should bring balance to the state's precarious finances, not only cutting baseline spending and/or raising taxes to equalize the ledger, but balancing the revenue system through tax reform."
Funny, our calendar shows there's an election in November...
Meanwhile, the governor's staff is going to
try to keep him off his motorcycle until he can legally ride. "'He won't ride until he has the proper endorsement…. That's our goal,' said spokeswoman
Margita Thompson, referring to her notoriously hard-to-control boss."
When asked Tuesday why he didn't get the license, the guv
responded frankly. "'I just never really got one,' the former actor said. 'I never thought about it.'"
Try using that excuse next time
Ponch and John pull you over.
The governor used the budget release to make light of the situation. "A car pulled out in front of me; it was right there in front. And I just couldn't make a decision which way to go," he said. "I knew, I knew if I would turn left, that the Republicans would get mad. And if I turned right, my wife would get mad, so I just crashed right into the car. I said, 'This is a safer thing to do.'"
Steve Lopez
offers to be the governor's sidecar companion in today's Times.
But perhaps the governor subliminally warned us of this moment when he was first sworn in. The Wall Street Journal checks in on a
Web site that claims
when you play Gov. Schwarzenegger's inaugural address in reverse, you can hear the words "
Soon, I'll beat the law.
"The governor's spokeswoman,
Margita Thompson, responded by email: "Sgurd gnisu eb yam yeht ekil sdnuos ti esuaceb wal eht kcab taeb ot evah yam siht did ohw elpoep eht, noos." Her backward translation: "Soon, the people who did this may have to beat back the law because it sounds like they may be using drugs."
Atigram, krow ecin!
