Posted on 11/30/2003 1:05:04 PM PST by John Jorsett
SACRAMENTO -- Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "miracle" cure for state money woes has turned into a curse in the eyes of the poor, disabled, elderly, motorists, students -- and Democratic lawmakers.
And nowhere is the outcry louder than in the liberal-leaning Bay Area.
The Democrat-dominated Legislature, called back into session by the newly elected governor, is scheduled Monday to begin debating his plan for narrowing California's multibillion-dollar deficit with a bond measure, spending cap and mid-year funding cuts.
Both Democrats and Republicans figure it will be an ugly week politically. But analysts, though hesitant to predict the outcome, say that lawmakers are feeling a great deal of pressure from voters to take definitive action.
A preview of the expected rhetoric came during recent informational legislative hearings.
Donna Arduin, Schwarzenegger's finance director, told lawmakers she blamed the state's fiscal mess on former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who was unseated in an unprecedented recall election Oct. 7, and on the Legislature.
"If over the past five years, the previous administration and Legislature had not created or expanded programs the state could not afford, expenditures in the budget would be much lower than they are today," Arduin said.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat who is eyeing a gubernatorial run in 2006, urged legislators to reject Schwarzenegger's proposed $15 billion deficit bond as a costly and risky tactic that will have to be paid off by future generations.
"What's crazy to me, to be honest with you, is why we go through the turmoil of this recall if we start the day after by saying we're going to increase the amount of deficit borrowing, not bring it down?" said Angelides.
Underlying the debate is the continuing desire on the part of Democrats and advocates for the poor to boost taxes in order to blunt spending cuts -- a strategy first rejected by GOP lawmakers and now opposed by Schwarzenegger.
"He's been in office for less than a month and he's already broken his oath to protect and serve all Californians," said Menachem Krajcer of the Applied Research Center, a liberal think tank in Oakland. "He promised no more politics as usual and already he's targeting the poor for budget cuts."
The governor's $15 billion deficit bond is the cornerstone of a fiscal plan that so far includes a proposed constitutional spending cap and mid-year budget reductions that would carry over into the next fiscal year, totaling nearly $4 billion. The plan relies heavily on cuts in social programs.
The spending cap ties the limit to population and personal income. Anything above that amount would go into a reserve to cover shortfalls, make rebates to taxpayers or offset the costs of emergencies declared by the governor.
It also would give the governor power to impose mid-year spending cuts during fiscal downturns, unless the Legislature approves an alternative on a two-thirds vote.
Educators have already attacked the complex measure, saying it would gradually restrict the flow of money to school programs.
If lawmakers ultimately agree this coming week to put the deficit bond and spending cap before voters in March, and to embrace the mid-year cuts, it would still leave a multibillion-dollar fiscal gap for the governor to close in the 2004-05 budget he must pitch to lawmakers in January.
But even the mid-year cuts -- part of the governor's "miracle of Sacramento" fiscal-health plan, as he dubbed it in his inaugural address -- has upset a broad spectrum of advocacy groups.
They accuse Schwarzenegger of targeting low-income Californians to generate money to offset the $4 billion car-tax cut that the governor approved Nov. 17.
Though legislation has been introduced to make up the lost vehicle license fee revenue for local governments, cities and counties are worried.
"Our budget is balanced now but it is precariously balanced because there are so many unknowns," said Susan Muranishi, Alameda County administrator.
Schwarzenegger has proposed $3.8 billion in budget cuts over the next 19 months, including reductions in services to the poor, disabled and elderly. He also has called for cuts in higher education and transportation.
His proposals include:
Ending an array of non-medical services for hundreds of thousands who are developmentally disabled.
Slashing various in-home services the state provides to tens of thousands of elderly residents to keep them out of nursing homes.
Freezing enrollment in several programs, including Healthy Families, which provide health care for children of the working poor.
Trimming 10 percent from the rate at which Medi-Cal, a government-subsidized health care program for the poor, reimburses doctors. That's on top of a 5 percent cut in this year's budget.
Scaling back food stamp eligibility.
Reducing by 5 percent grants to people in CalWORKS, the state's welfare-to-work program.
Moving hundreds of millions of dollars -- some of it permanently -- from traffic congestion relief coffers to help offset the deficit.
Cutting more than $200 million from the University of California and California State University systems.
"At a time when our university system's budget has already been reduced by $304 million, these cuts will be painful," said California State University Chancellor Charles Reed.
But it was the proposed cuts affecting the poor, disabled and elderly that drew the harshest responses.
"This is going to be extraordinarily difficult given that we have been the target of reductions over the last few years," said Chet Hewitt, director of the Alameda County Social Services Agency.
Rocio Smith, a Bay Area advocate for the developmentally disabled, noted that Schwarzenegger had said he was "going to cut waste and fraud."
"Is this waste and fraud?"
Staff writers Michele R. Marcucci, Rebecca Vesely and Michelle Maitre contributed to this report.
BS
The plan relies heavily on borrowing $15B which spares social programs.
We can only hope that within our lifetime California will elect a fiscal and social conservative.
Yep. Still, the Dem howls sound good. Cheap thrills.
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