California Gov.Schwarzenegger: Let’s Cut Welfare and Child Insurance
By Ashley Jones on January 28, 2010, 12:09 pm Posted in Finance NewsCalifornia’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting budget spending by taking away the welfare to work program, cutting insurance for children and various health programs. The budget was proposed in early January with the state facing a $19.9 budget deficit. The Governor seems reluctant to increase taxes and would rather cut social programs.
Budget Cuts “Draconian”
The Budget proposal already includes federal Aid in the amount of $7 billion that federal mandates require be given to the state of California. California is depending on receiving the federal funding and if it is not received more program cuts will be required. Members of the Governors cabinet have been reported to describe the budget cuts are “draconian.”
Whether the federal funds do arrive or not there will still be major reductions in social programs including state run health care. California has been hit rather hard by the economic crisis in recent years and has one of the largest budget deficits of all states in U.S. The unemployment rate has skyrocketed in the state and many families rely upon welfare programs to feed and house themselves.
Welfare To Work May Be Cut Entirely
The current budget cuts only call for a reduction in the welfare to work program that helps millions of Californians. Unfortunately, if the state budget continues to remain in deficit the welfare to work program may have to be axed. Other programs that are being considered for reduction include; the Medi-Cal healthcare plan for poor individuals, home care for the elderly and low-cost family medical insurance.
According to the proposal it is estimated that as many as 200,000 children could lose their health care plans. Currently the state helps insure 900,00 children and further cuts may be inevitable. The cuts also will leave 360,000 elderly persons will lose their in home care. If federal funds do not arrive the cuts will be much deeper and some of these programs will be scrapped entirely.
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You know I’m on welfare, but I’m earning it by going to school full time, as does my wife, full time. We don’t use the day care services because we plan our schedules so that one of us is home while the other is at school. Like many working families, we pass each other on a daily basis, barely seeing each other to keep the food on the table. We both keep 3.8′s-4.0′s. Straight A’s or A-’s. We try very hard because we want to get careers so that we can break this cycle of surviving. With no parents or guardians on either side to keep us afloat, we barely make it month to month, have only the basic of necessities, no cell phone or any other wasteful expenses. We’ve only had aid for a few months, because we were too proud to ask for help until we became homeless and were still going to school full time, living out of our car, while still keeping 4.0′s. You’re going to punish us more? What did we ever do except be born to irresponsible parents and want for our entire lives for normality, stability, and the American dream? Some of you need to open your eyes to what’s really the issue. Many of us are not abusing any system and you make us feel more shame and disgust for wanting better than a job at walmart. Shame on you.
What we should do is implement laws to require drug tests for benefits and also to remove illegal aliens from any and all benefits until they are here legally. Coming over here just to have kids and sucking the benefits dry is one of many problems, including prison overcrowding, people at the top receiving huge salaries, state workers receiving huge overtime pay at prisons (sometimes more pay in overtime than their actual salary), cutting education while investing in crime/crime prevention. If you’d educate people, they’d see the cycle they’re stuck in. Instead, we spend 30-45 thousand dollars per year per prisoner to keep people locked up for petty crimes, making them worse criminals than they were when they entered the violent prison system. How about we use some logic before we continue to impede the ability of the poor to rise from the bottom and be something other than minimum wage 3rd generation survivors.