From Twitter, and, somehow, Livejournal. Emphasiseses mine!:
Schwarzenegger signs budget, makes major cuts to programs
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed off on revisions to the 2009-10 budget Tuesday, but he drew the anger of Democratic lawmakers by making last-minute cuts to programs they fought to protect.
Schwarzenegger made $489 million in cuts to the budget revision package passed by the Assembly and Senate last week. Most of those cuts, made in the form of vetoes to parts of the package, were from health and human services programs, including In-Home Support Services and AIDS prevention.
"We will fight to restore every dollar of additional cuts to health and human services," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "This is not the last word."
Last week, the Senate passed a budget revision package that erased the state's $26.3 billion deficit and left a $921 million reserve. But the Assembly failed to pass two parts of that package - including one that took $1 billion in transportation from local governments - leaving the state with no reserve and, Schwarzenegger's office said, a deficit of $126 million.
"Governor Schwarzenegger promised Californians a balanced budget that solves our entire deficit and with these vetoes, the Governor delivered on that promise today," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear. "The Legislature handed the Governor a budget that fell short, which is why he used his executive authority to balance the budget."
Steinberg said some of the governor's cuts could be illegal.
The cuts include slashing $25 million from health clinics; $52 million from AIDS prevention, education and treatment programs; $16 million from domestic violence programs; $50 million from Healthy Families, which provides health insurance for poor children; and $37.6 million from In-Home Supportive Services.
Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, said most of the cuts were necessary, but he said he'll have a hard time swallowing the cut to domestic violence shelters. Schwarzenegger's $16.3 million cut eliminates all state funding for the programs.
"Many (shelters) will not be able to be supported without that funding," Adams said. "That $16 million supported almost 105,000 people in the state - people who will have nowhere to go other than the emergency room. That's not a good answer."
The Victorville-based High Desert Domestic Violence Program, for example, gets 40 percent of its funding from the state.
Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, agreed that the domestic violence cut was ill-advised. She was especially concerned, though, about the governor's elimination of funding for the Black Infant Health Program.
"I'm just not real sure why he felt he had to pick on these programs," Carter said. She said a successful San Bernardino Black Infant Health Program "is going to be devastated."
She said the Legislature, after returning from its summer break, had planned to make cuts and budget changes of its own to build up the budget reserve.
"It's not like he had to rush" to make cuts, she said. "We all committed to that. I'm just not sure why he decided to do that today."
Such an agreement was news to Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Walnut, who said he had not heard of any plan to deal with the reserve in August.
Wow. WOW. I understand that California is in, how you say, massive debt--but THAT'S what you had to cut? AIDS prevention & care and domestic violence shelters? Really? Health clinics? So in solving your debt you putting thousands of people--men, women, children--at risk? Was that really the answer? HOW is this fucking acceptable?
