Posted on 05/15/2010 3:04:01 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Proposing a budget that would eliminate the state's welfare-to-work program and most child care for the poor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday outlined a stark vision of a California that would sharply limit aid to some of its poorest and neediest citizens.
His $83.4-billion plan would also freeze funding for local schools, further cut state workers' pay and take away 60% of state money for local mental health programs. State parks and higher education are among the few areas the governor's proposal would spare.
The proposal, which would not raise taxes, also relies on $3.4 billion in help from Washington roughly half of what the governor sought earlier this year to help close a budget gap now estimated at $19.1 billion. Billions more would be saved through accounting moves and fund shifts.
"California no longer has low-hanging fruits," said Schwarzenegger at an afternoon news conference in Sacramento. "I now have no choice but to call for elimination of some very important programs."
Elimination of CalWorks, the state's main welfare program, would affect 1.3 million people, including about 1 million children. The program, which requires recipients to eventually have jobs, gives families an average $500 a month. Ending those payments would save the state $1.6 billion, the administration said. It would also make California the only state not to offer a welfare-to-work program for low-income families with children.
Lawmakers rejected previous attempts by the governor to eliminate the program.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Mr. Goldmacher,
You COULD reform CALPERS instead....
hh
What cuts do you think should be made?
The taxes will pass and the cuts will be rejected by the legislature. The left will simply keep squealing to D.C. for a bailout, and sooner or later they will get what they ask for. The unions will absolutely be saved by Obama as they contribute a significant amount of cash to the election campaigns for dems.
Arnold knows all of this and his posturing is simply for posterity.
How long until there is a “Greece fire” that breaks out in Calfornia?
And we won’t have Germany to help pour gasoline on that conflagration. It is not as if California totally lacked the resources to pull themselves out of this mire, as they have HUGE quantities of petroleum locked up both offshore, and untapped capabilities inland. Plus, this is the exact right place to be building new nuclear power plants, starting at the rate of one every month for the next five years or so.
If California is going to have a “hydrogen economy”, in which fuel-cell vehicles may be getting charged on every street corner, the power generation capability has to be immediately available, no buying up of electric power from Washington State and Canada (which may have gotten them into this growing bind in the first place).
And why is electric power necessary for a “hydrogen economy”, you ask? Because we cannot mine hydrogen, or pump it out of a well, and it does not transport easily from elsewhere. It has to be made on the spot, by using electric power to form free hydrogen from the electrolysis of water.
Not as efficient as using pixie dust, to be sure, but the technology is much better developed for its application in this world in which we live.
He should impose a massive tax on the skittle farting unicorns. (Whenever the Democrats begin to deliver on their election promises.)
This latest proposal sets off the timer.. no telling what may come..
There is still 40% left to try to cure liberalism.
See ? This is the kind of misleading statistic that really annoys me:
“Elimination of CalWorks, the state’s main welfare program, would affect 1.3 million people, including about 1 million children. The program, which requires recipients to eventually have jobs, gives families an average $500 a month. Ending those payments would save the state $1.6 billion”
At $500/mo, that’s $6,000/yr per family. In order to total $1.6B for the year, that means 267K families. Meaning an average family size of five for the people on welfare ?
So people that can’t even afford to take care of themselves went ahead and had an average of three kids. More likely four anchor babies and single illegal alien parents. And I am supposed to feel bad about cutting funding to such irresponsible people ?
Hopefully the company I work for will run like hell OUT OF California.
What cuts do I think should be made? Well, to begin with cut off all the hippies here who have been scamming the system for decades getting “crazy money” every month.
Then there’s the homeless issue.......stop the coddling of the homeless (most of whom are homeless by choice and proud of it.) Stop throwing money at the problem.
Also, stop building libraries on every street corner. The libraries claim they don’t have money to pay staff, and are only operating a few days a week, but meanwhile the politicians keep planning to build more libraries. The word “library” is almost a religious, sacred word to these far left idiots here.
That’s a start.
That was last year huh?
Apropos of nothing... I have 2 new "residents" living "under my roof".
...every time I step out my front door, these "people" are screaming at me in a language I CANNOT understand!!!
Does that say the state is giving free BJ’s or cocaine to the poor?
Its going to be a long, hot summer.
He'll be on a private jet to Austria the moment that happens.
The libraries are the hippie hollows AND offer a place for the homeless to “go”.
EggsAckley!
Maybe Arnold should call Christie in NJ to get some ideas.
I wonder how many state funded “art” museums were closed? I bet NONE~!
Yep. As much as I like to see spending cuts, think how much lower taxes would be if they were retargeted from the rich to the poor. If you tax something, you get less of it, and this works with taxing the “poor” as well — they’ll go elsewhere.
Reducing the CA sales tax rate from 8.25% on limited items to 3% on everything — including groceries, rents, medicine, and all other services — would actually raise more tax revenue while making CA a better place to live for people with disposable income and less friendly to the freeloaders. We could also reverse the shift to online out-of-state purchases by reducing the tax on local brick and mortar sales from 8.25% down to 3%.
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