Arnold Twitters in that he got "permission" to enact the budget cuts on home health care workers and still qualify for all federal stimulus money in the health care sector. Cap Weekly has more.
The state of California has received permission from the federal government to cut wages of home healthcare workers without fear of losing federal stimulus dollars.
The ruling comes as a victory for the Schwarzenegger administration, and a defeat for the Service Employees International Union which had sought federal intervention to stop the cuts.
Cuts in home healthcare worker pay were part of the budget solution passed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders in February. As part of his May budget revision, Schwarzenegger has proposed further cuts for in-home support workers. The Legislature cut IHSS worker pay by $2 per hour, lowering wages from $12.10 to $10.10 per hour. The cuts saved the state an estimated $74 million.
It's important to note that, while these cuts suck and will really hurt IHSS workers, they are relatively minor compared to the cuts in health care and education Schwarzenegger wants to enact, while still qualifying for stimulus money. So the Administration can still wield some power here. But obviously this is a bad sign. The Governor should not be allowed to essentially reverse the effect of the stimulus on his own. In fact, he ought to just resign.
...Arnold takes the flawed message from the election that it was a tax revolt.
Schwarzenegger said he received the voters' message "loud and clear: an overwhelming majority of people told Sacramento, 'Go and do your work yourself, don't come to us with your problems...."
"The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means," he said.
Voters were so worked up, in fact, that they turned out in the lowest numbers in state history, and they voted down the same borrowing gimmicks and spending cuts for successful programs that will now compose the Governor's agenda. Let me suggest that I don't believe in his message-taking ability.
Marc Cooper actually has a decent column on Arnold's total failure. |
