On the California Budget and Schwarzenegger’s Vetoes

Posted July 29, 2009 at 3:43 PM

http://www.afscmeblog.org/2009/07/29/on-the-california-budget-and-schwarzeneggers-...

From Calitics: Today we witness the damage that the line-item veto causes in the hands of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold's vetoes include:

• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks -- 100 total -- will now have to close)

• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs

• $80 million cut to child welfare services

• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including further Healthy Families cuts

• Elimination of funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development

• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs

• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters

• Elimination of funding for California Conservation Corps

Another sobering note comes from the United Ways of California: cuts to children's health care will ensure the wider spread of H1N1 flu this fall. Children are one of the primary vectors of swine flu, and without access to health care we will see a more intense and more deadly flu epidemic when school starts this fall.

See the full list of cuts here.