Word: budget
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...Hollywood star best known for playing the Terminator and Conan the Barbarian, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California six years ago to slay the deficit dragon that has been terrorizing the state for most of the past decade. But in his final budget proposal, on Jan. 8, Schwarzenegger, a Republican, struggled to address a $19.9 billion budget gap over the next 18 months, unveiling plans that include what he calls "draconian cuts" to social services. The man who used to be hailed as the Governator didn't reference any of his action movies to describe his battles with...
Arnold's choice is clear: to protect the state's vaunted higher-education system. In the same week that Schwarzenegger revealed his budget proposal, which calls for deep cuts to health care, social services and public transit, he also proposed a constitutional amendment (yes, another amendment) that would guarantee that the state would spend no less than 10% of its general fund on public universities and no more than 7% on state prisons. In his State of the State address, he declared that the state's future economic well-being is dependent on education. "Thirty years...
...prison population has exploded to 170,000 inmates. Overcrowding is so severe that federal judges have ordered the state to reduce the prison population by 40,000 over the next two years. Health expenses for an aging prison population are the fastest-growing part of the state's budget...
...governor's proposed cuts go through, it will shred the safety net," says Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank focused on low- and middle-income families. A recent study by this nonpartisan group found that the state, now suffering 12.3% unemployment, has lost all of the nonfarm jobs gained during the recent economic expansion. Nonfarm employment rose from 14.3 million in 2003 to a peak of 15.2 million in 2007. By July, it had fallen to 14.2 million...
...welfare system under severe strain. Unemployment in many urban neighborhoods tops 20%, and the number of homeless women and children is growing. Additional cuts to the foster-care system and increased caseloads for social-welfare workers will put children's lives at risk, according to Bass. "Last year's budget left the safety net on life support," she says. "Now the governor is talking about disconnecting the respirator...