With the SF Chronicle publishing a long front page feature yesterday about the cessation of Medi-Cal payments scheduled to start next week and the resulting hardships to the chronically ill and disabled, I wanted to share a story with you about one activist and how she's standing up to Gov. Schwarzenegger.
Eartha Newsong is a Democrat and former nun/retired nurse who lives in the upscale Bay Area suburb of Orinda. Three weeks ago she read an article in her local paper which discussed the fight over state budget cuts and the effect that the Republicans' ideological intransigence would have on group homes in her community.
Few people are following the state budget impasse in Sacramento with as much anxiety as Steve Zolno, co-owner of 11 homes for disabled children and adults in Contra Costa County.
Hundreds of such homes across the state will be among the earliest casualties of the budget stalemate. Their funding will evaporate within the next week or two as a state contingency fund runs out of money.
Last Thursday Capitol Weekly wrote a story about now approved budget prosed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and passed by the state legislator. The plan has received negative reviews across the board but especially from educations, unions, and advocates of health care who do not agree with the 10% across the board cuts. Of particular concern though are the expectations for how the Medi-Cal program will have to run its business in the next fiscal year.
Yes, you read that right. The Governator is going to be making a public appearance at a private school in South Orange County and to add insult to injury, thousands of parents of children in public school plan on protesting this appearance. Do you blame them?
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - Hundreds of parents, students and teachers from across South County are expected to surround a private school where the governor is rumored to be making an appearance Thursday to protest his proposed $4 billion cut to K-12 education.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is widely believed to be making an unannounced stop at St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano for an afternoon pep rally.
St. Margaret's spokeswoman Anne Mack referred all questions about the appearance to the governor's office, which would not confirm his attendance.
"We respect the right of people to express their concerns through peaceful demonstration ... and we want the very best for all students in Orange County and California," Mack said in a prepared statement.
(Thanks Sen. Kuehl! Keep on fighting! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
The Budget Process Through July 21st
This is my third essay for 2007 and the first one I have done on the 2007-2008 budget, which has now passed, after a series of cuts and more cuts. In this first of several essays on the budget, I will set out some of the provisions of the budget originally agreed to by the budget conference committee, the changes that were made to that budget in the Assembly in order to get 6 Republican votes and the reasons for the two-month stalemate in the Senate. Visit my website at www.sen.ca.gov/kuehl to read my previous essays. If you wish to subscribe to receive these essays on a continuing basis, (no charge), please send an e-mail to Sheila.Kuehl@sen.ca.gov, titled "subscribe".
Edits by Brian For form and space only. See the flip...
I've been avoiding writing about the Schwarzenegger vs. Perata fight over the big bond package. At the moment, I just don't feel sufficiently informed about the details, and I reckon things will heat up in March, after the June 6 ballot deadline. But one item in particular kept sticking out in most of the articles about Schwarzenegger's bond proposal:
[Democrats] Murray, Laird and Chu also criticized Schwarzenegger's call for a constitutional amendment that would limit annual bond payments to 6 percent of the state's main budget account, the general fund.
Imposing a cap, administration officials say, would keep California from going too deeply into the red.
"We wanted to have some sort of limit on debt services, although I admit 6 percent is not a magic number," [State Finance Director Mike] Genest told the [state legislature conference] committee.
If six percent isn't a magic number, I thought, then why pick that number in particular? Surely the number wasn't just pulled out of the air. I mean, it's a Constitutional Amendment, after all. Daniel Weintraub (of all people) rides to the rescue:
Gov. Schwarzenegger's numbers crunchers have been circulating some figures to legislative leaders and others that compare the debt service cost of his $68 billion infrastructure borrowing plan to the outline floated by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez for a $30 billion package.
According to the figures from the Department of Finance, if the state authorizes no more borrowing, the debt service on general obligation and revenue bonds will peak at about 5 percent of general fund revenues in 2010, then decline over time to 1.89 percent 20 years from now. With the governor's plan to sell $68 billion in bonds, that debt service would eventually reach about 6 percent of the general fund, compared to about 4.73 percent today.
Well, look at that. Six percent is a magic number. It's the number at which nobody after Governor Schwarzenegger can ever borrow money until Schwarzenegger's debt is paid down. It's a low-rent starve-the-beast Norquist-style strategy for the state government. (Weintraub conveniently forgot to mention this astonishing coincidence in his entry on the topic, though he does manage to find time to craft a paragraph to snipe at the Democrats in the state legislature -- priorities are important.)
