The Republican minority in the state assembly and state senate have issued their own budget proposal and Dan Weintraub’s column today exposes it as a joke.
For the party that will protect luxury yacht owners by leaving open a Tax Loophole and allowing themse;ves to be more accountable to the Flash Report than voters, the Republican proposal suggests the following cuts:
•Eliminate eligibility for thousands of poor people in the Medi-Cal health program.
•Cut grants to families on welfare by 5 percent.
•Deny cash grants to children in families on welfare when the adult in the family has not met work participation requirements.
•Reduce the state’s share of responsibility for wages paid to workers who care for the elderly and disabled in their homes. The proposal would also end domestic benefits such as housecleaning and meal preparation for homebound disabled people who are not the most critically in need.
•Reduce grants for aged, blind and disabled couples by $66 a month.
All together, the Republican plan would cut $1.6 billion from the governor’s latest proposal, which already was about $2 billion smaller than the one the Democrats had proposed.
But that would not be enough to make up for the $4 billion Schwarzenegger is counting on next year from a temporary one-cent increase in the sales tax. Yet rather than propose more spending cuts, the Republicans propose to borrow.
Pretty heartless.Â
What’s the answer? Let’s change things in Sacramento so this minority party that is clearly out of ideas can no longer hold the stage hostage as it places the interests of the weatlhly over the interests of anyone else.