Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Looking over more of David Dayen's take on the California Budget deal, this struck me the most as he goes through "25 things" you should know about the deal:

19. Initially, the shortfall to Healthy Families, the state's version of SCHIP, was believed to be $90 million. But this budget would increase that to $144 million, with more lost from federal match, and at that rate, it's unclear if First Five will be able to step in and provide all the funding to cover the gap.

20. In particular, the health and human services cuts really make this a different state, one that's less forgiving, dirtier, shabbier, and simply a harder place to live. Not for the largest corporations in America, of course, whose massive corporate tax cuts from prior budget deals remain.

21. The faces of budget failure:

Miriam Ibarra, 31, of Victorville, sighed when she heard about the budget cuts affecting the Healthy Families program, the low-cost medical insurance program for the working poor. About half the children enrolled in the program appear likely to lose their healthcare.

"It would really affect me because I don't have any other kind of insurance," she said. "Honestly, I don't even know what I would do" without it.

Ibarra's husband is a truck driver who doesn't get health benefits because he is self-employed. Ibarra, a stay-at-home mom, and her husband go without health insurance. But the Healthy Families program covers the couple's two children, ages 14 and 10, for a premium of about $10 a month, with $5 co-pays for some visits.

22. Not much discussed in this budget is the multiplier effect of the cuts on federal matching dollars. Cuts to Healthy Families like the one described above are actually three times as much as they look on paper, because the federal government adds $2 to every $1 the state spends. The White House is very upset about cuts like this that significantly reduce coverage for children, and others that blunt the effect of federal stimulus dollars.

And that's the real killer here. Real people are going to suffer because of this deal, and the real problem is as long as that 2/3 majority rule stands before anyone can change anything, it's going to keep on being terrible.

The best part is that like Atrios says, Cali Republicans are going to trash the deal anyway.