Schwarzenegger budget: No new taxes, deeper cuts
Friday, May 14, 2010
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(05-14) 08:13 PDT Sacramento, Calif. (AP) --
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger releases his revised budget plan for the coming fiscal year Friday, one that is expected to propose deep cuts across most state agencies and call for eliminating many health and social programs for the poor.
With unemployment remaining high and tax revenue low, California will face a deficit of more than $20 billion — a quarter of all general fund spending — in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
"We're not going to get through the deficit we have without some really tough decisions and some really terrible cuts," Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, said earlier this week.
A severe national recession has left California with a 12.6 percent unemployment rate, causing a severe drop in tax revenue that shows no sign of abating. Personal income tax revenue in April was down about $3 billion, or 30 percent, from the administration's projections.
The governor and Republican lawmakers have vowed not to raise taxes, as the Legislature did last year, ensuring that spending cuts will be the main solution. That could leave single mothers, foster youth, children from low-income families, the disabled and seniors who rely on state services feeling most of the pain.
Democrats, the Legislature's majority party, say California already has cut too much from state programs in recent years and will violate the spirit of the recently enacted federal health care overhaul if Schwarzenegger's proposals are enacted.
Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have made cuts, borrowing
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger releases his revised budget plan for the coming fiscal year Friday, one that is expected to propose deep cuts across most state agencies and call for eliminating many health and social programs for the poor.
With unemployment remaining high and tax revenue low, California will face a deficit of more than $20 billion — a quarter of all general fund spending — in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
"We're not going to get through the deficit we have without some really tough decisions and some really terrible cuts," Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, said earlier this week.
A severe national recession has left California with a 12.6 percent unemployment rate, causing a severe drop in tax revenue that shows no sign of abating. Personal income tax revenue in April was down about $3 billion, or 30 percent, from the administration's projections.
The governor and Republican lawmakers have vowed not to raise taxes, as the Legislature did last year, ensuring that spending cuts will be the main solution. That could leave single mothers, foster youth, children from low-income families, the disabled and seniors who rely on state services feeling most of the pain.
Democrats, the Legislature's majority party, say California already has cut too much from state programs in recent years and will violate the spirit of the recently enacted federal health care overhaul if Schwarzenegger's proposals are enacted.
Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have made cuts, borrowing
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/05/14/national/a081055D66.DTL&type=education#ixzz0nvr07tVO