Today we witness the damage that the line-item veto causes in the hands of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold's vetoes include:Not satisfied with the tens of billions in cuts taken out of California programs, Ahnold sees his enemies driven before him and listens to the lamentations of the Democrats. What are the Dems going to do, exactly? They've already given him 98% of the cuts he wanted. He just decided to take the last 2%.• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks - 100 total - will now have to close)
• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs
• $80 million cut to child welfare services
• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including further Healthy Families cuts
• Elimination of funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development
• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs, as Brian noted.
• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters
• Elimination of funding for California Conservation Corps
• Cut half of Cal Grant funding, but could be restored "contingent upon enactment of legislation that authorizes the decentralization of the Cal Grant Program and other financial aid programs as warranted."
The state legislature could try and override these vetoes. But as we've seen time and again, this legislature appears to have forgotten that the override power actually exists. It would be a very good chance for Democrats to force Republicans to take a stand on these programs. Either they vote to restore the funding, or they vote to kick kids off of health care and close beaches and parks, giving Dems a set of issues to run on in 2010.
It seems doubtful that such an override will even be attempted. And so California slides deeper into ruin.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Governator Draws The Line
Via Atrios, Robert Cruickshank at Calitics reports on Ahnold wielding the line-item veto pen like Conan's broadsword.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Republicans never bargain in good faith. Never. They are a criminal consortium whose only redeeming quality is that they are mortals and will some day die.
Well it's more the fact that the Democrats simply let them get away with it. Nearly every damn time, they just roll over and assume the position.
Puhleez. Democrats got CA into it's problems. (Not that Arnie helped any, really).
Get used to the cuts it's gonna happen everywhere.
Both sides are very much guilty of the problem. But this solution, all cuts, no taxes, is all Ahnold.
Post a Comment