Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newest budget cuts are huge blows. There are cuts to foster care, health coverage, cash assistance for children, food programs and the in-home services that allow 408,000 elderly, bind or disabled to live at home rather than be institutionalized.
In the eighth largest economy in the world, these slashes are pretty hard to take.
The cuts are made worse by the knowledge that Schwarzenegger is failing to save hundreds of millions of dollars because he has decided not to let the 22,000 non-violent prisoners out early, as he had planned, purely because he caved in to political pressure.
But, out of all the bad news, there were a couple of positive changes in the proposed budget:
$1.8 billion was given back to the state’s education budget.
2. The governor’s plan to close 48 out of the state’s 278 state parks.…., for now anyway, has been scrapped.
The parks stay open.
About the latter, good for Arnold for realizing that shutting down essential park land at a savings of a paltry 13.3 million was a terribly short-sighted move. According to the City Project, the biggest closures were to have affected four of the California counties—Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Clara—- most in need of “green access.”
But, in response to widespread pressure, Schwarzenegger wisely reversed his course.
(Hey, I credit the eleven Topanga sixth graders.)
interestingly, in their analysis of the proposed (now dropped) park closures The City Project notes that, whenever park bond measures come around, it is Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, PLUS lower income voters in general, who vote in the greatest numbers for park funding.
In 2002, California voters passed Proposition 40, which provided $2.6 billion for parks, clean water and clean air. Prop 40 passed with the support of 77% of Black voters, 74% of Latino voters, 60% of Asian voters, and 56% of non-Hispanic White voters. 75% of voters with an annual family income below $20,000, and 61% with a high school diploma or less, supported Prop 40 – the highest among any income or education levels.
In November 2006, the support of people of color was crucial to Proposition 84, a $5.4 billion park and water bond. Only 45% of non-Hispanic whites favored Prop 84. Latinos supported Prop 84 by 84% and gave Prop 84 an 800,000 vote margin, accounting for Prop 84’s margin of victory.
We take the victories where ever we can find them.
What happened to the Shaw, Sr. thread about Jamiel’s Law, Grief and the ‘Other'” etc.? Did you take it down, or am I hallucinating? I don’t think the latter, I’m totally straight so…?
Oh, I see, back with an edited title — it just temporarily disappeared while you were working on it. Phew, I’m not dreaming. Totally…
WBC, When I changed the title a couple of hours ago (see note in the comments), I must have hit some key that sent it into PRIVATE mode, and I didn’t notice until just now. Very annoying. I wish I knew how I make that happen as I do it accidentally from time to time. Sorry ’bout that.
Rest easy. No acid flashbacks involved.
…Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, PLUS lower income voters in general, who vote in the greatest numbers for park funding.
Well, I would guess so, seeing how they view it as OTHER PEOPLE payiing the taxes to fund government projects.