Every year for the last few years, it has been the same story. The governor (whether Democrat or Republican) proposes his budget in January, depending heavily on cuts to education, welfare, healthcare and childcare, while refusing to consider tax increases on the wealthy or corporations.

This year is no different. Governor Schwarzenegger claims that he hates his own budget, but that he had to make “hard choices.” However, those choices did not include the consideration of any solution except cutting more deeply into more programs that hurt more people. This year, he has especially targeted families on CalWORKS, including punishing parents who work by cutting their checks.

Of the $9 billion deficit this year, $1.1 billion comes from cuts to CalWORKS and SSI/SSP, the largest single cut to any program. What does this tell us? We need to ORGANIZE. Despite his reputation as an action hero, Schwarzenegger tends to pick on people who haven’t had enough power or money to protest loud enough. Some hero! If everyone who was affected by these cuts spoke out, he wouldn’t dare to make these cuts.

The Governor’s proposed cuts in this year’s budget include:

• Eliminating the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for CalWORKS recipients, cutting grant levels by 6.5% and reducing the earned income disregard, for an average cut of $160/month per family;
• Permanently repealing the law that gives families on CalWORKS a COLA each year.
• Suspension of the state and federal COLA for SSI/SSP recipients for a cut of $32/month for individuals and $66 for couples;
• Reductions in benefits and new premiums for Medi-Cal recipients, as well as changes to the Medi-Cal programs that will take effect in future years cutting benefits and services for the aged, blind and disabled and the working poor;
• Changes to the state child care system which could impact working
  families’ ability to afford and access quality child care services, including time limits for child care assistance, loweringreimbursement rates to providers, and changing income eligibility by basing it upon the federal poverty level.
• Slashing IHSS wages from $10.10 per hour to $6.75 per hour (minimum wage). IHSS workers help the most disabled remain in their homes by performing chores and assisting with the person’s basic needs.

The Governor’s budget came out in January. That does not mean it is a done deal! There will be hearings in the state legislature throughout March and April. In May, the Governor will introduce his “May Revise,” which changes his budget proposal based on the revenue from taxes that have come in, and the political pressure he’s been getting. The budget has to be passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor. The budget is supposed to be passed by the end of June, but in 17 of the last 22 years, it has dragged on through July or even August. That just gives us more time to make our voices heard.

Governor Schwarzenegger is looking more and more like George Bush. When Bush released his federal budget proposals in February, he deeply cut social services programs and made tax cuts for the wealthy permanent! At both the state and federal levels, wealthy people are getting wealthier, corporations are paying less and less, and the rest of us are paying more and more.

We have two jobs to do. In the short-term, we need to organize to fight these cuts. In the long-term, we need to educate people that these budget “crises” will continue year after year until corporations and wealthy individuals pay their fair share, instead of balancing the budget on the backs of poor people.

The California Partnership is working hard this year toward both these goals. There will be hearings up in Sacramento on April 7 and April 13 on the CalWORKS cuts and we would love to have folks, especially parents who receive CalWORKs, join us. We’ll be providing food and transportation. We’re also going to be having “tax fairness” actions around the state, including Oakland, on Tax Day, April 15. For more information about how to get involved, please contact our Northern California Organizer, Rochelle Robinson, at rrobinson@communitychange.org or call 510-292-6941.

We can beat these cuts but we need your help! Please join us!

Rebecca

This entry was posted on Friday, April 1st, 2005 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.