California NOW

Budget Cuts Will Harm Women and Children

Contact Governor Schwarzenegger and your State Legislators to oppose cuts to health and human services and support new state revenues. Proposed budget cuts will disproportionately affect women and harm the most vulnerable Californians.

Proposed budget reductions cut funds that are essential to important programs such as Medi-Cal, CalWORKS, SSI/SSP and Healthy Families.

Your political leaders need to know where you stand. Budget cuts are being proposed that take away from important programs and services vital to the most disadvantaged in our state, mostly poor women and their families. If you do not speak up, who will??

Call or fax Governor Schwarzenegger and your state Senator and Assemblymember urging them to maintain funding for programs and services that lend a helping hand to the most impoverished Californians.  Utilize your right to voice your opinion in support of a budget solution that protects all Californians by increasing revenues!

To find contact information for your Senator or Assembly Member go to leginfo.ca.gov and click on "your legislator"

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633

California State Budget Stalemate

Last night, the State Senate rejected three measures to get the state's cash flow issues under control. The Governor has vetoed the Democrats (Assembly & Senate) versions of the CA State budget and has called for a new special session of the Legislature to deal with CA’s financial crisis.  In addition, he has declared CA in a State of Fiscal Emergency. The state is now issuing IOUs for all payments for only the second time since the Great Depression, and Schwarzenegger has added a 3rd furlough day each month for State employees.

One slight positive to the situation is that the failure of the three budget bills means delays in the planned cuts to education funding.  Given that 19 school districts already are too short on funds to cover bills through the end of the school year, deeper cuts could only have been more devastating. Small consolation when the bills' failure increases the budget problem by $2-$7 billion.  The funding battle may have long-reaching consequences as well: state parks closed due to funding issued could be seized by the federal government.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has some unique ideas about how to solve the stalemate, including hiring a mediator or crafting alternative budgets for coastal and inland areas.  Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is being condemned for referring to the refusal to raise taxes as "terrorism" but how else to categorize a small group who are holding the state's future hostage?

Meanwhile, all Senate committee meetings have been postponed indefinitely so that state Senators can focus on budget issues.

You can catch all our posts on the state budget under the "economics" tag.

Paid Family Leave Can Help Ease Impacts of Budget Cuts for Workers with Seriously Ill Family Members!

Workers whose disabled family members' care is threatened by state budget cuts need to know that Paid Family Leave may help!

While the Budget Conference Committee "[d]oes not adopt the Governor's proposals to eliminate Adult Day Health Care," budget cuts are likely and it is critical for low-income workers to know about their rights under California's Paid Family Leave law.

The vote will be soon, and may result in reduction of "Adult Day Health coverage to three days per week for a savings of $26.8 million." For more information on the Budget Conference Committee, click here.

Please let others know that:

- Paid Family Leave may be taken intermittently. For example, a worker can take PFL two days per week to provide care for a family member with a serious health condition! The PFL law does not have a minimum number of days or even hours - just a maximum of 6 weeks per year, which can be spread out over one year.

- Paid Family Leave may be used while a worker directly provides care or makes arrangements for a third party to provide care for a family member with a serious health condition.

- Paid Family Leave is employee-funded from deductions that have already been taken from workers paychecks, making it that much more important that workers know their Paid Family Leave rights!

Also, please let us know if you shared this information to help a working family caregiver through these tough economic times! Email info@paidfamilyleave.org or call 800-880-8047.

Women & Wealth: Strategies to Thrive in Tough Economic Times

Women face unique challenges when it comes to financial security. To address this issue, join the California Women's Legislative Caucus, the California Commission on the Status of Women, the California Women's Agenda and the New America Foundation's Asset Building Program for a lunchtime discussion on how financial empowerment strategies can create asset ownership and savings opportunities for women throughoutCalifornia who aspire to be financially secure.

Friday, July 17, 2009
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Legislative Update: State Budget

The Senate President Pro Tempore, Darrell Steinberg, just announced that Wednesday at 9am the Senate will vote on a proposed State budget. There will be no committee hearings that day, and if it can be arranged with the Speaker of the Assembly, Senate Committees will be moved to Thursday.

That means we have less than 48 hours to work to ensure that the new state budget takes a minimal toll on California's neediest populations!  We already worked to save CalWORKS in the committee stage, but we need to continue contacting state legislators to ask them to maintain the social safety net programs that are so desperately needed during this recession.

Look up your state Senator and Assemblymember, and call, fax and email today and tomorrow to be sure we get the message across!  

Tell them: Don't cut social safety net programs!  California families are in desperate need of help from programs like CalWORKS and Healthy Families/Medi-Cal. These programs save our state far more than they cost, and bring much-needed federal dollars to the state in matching funds.  The long-term cost of cutting these programs will hurt California's budget even more.  Please maintain social safety-net funding!

Take action online NOW!

Public Option vs. Single Payer Explained

Thanks to Shakesville and the Arizona League of Women Voters, here's a great explanation of the differences between Single Payer and Public Option health care plans. Click for larger image.

Should the U.S. Bail Out European Banks, or California?

The California budget crisis continues to grow with no end in sight. State Controller John Chiang has stated that California is only about 50 days away from, "a meltdown of state government."

The massive cuts in programs and state spending that are being proposed to close the budget gaps will not only have a disproportionate impact on the state's needy families, whose numbers are increasing due to the recession, but will also have the effect of slowing the state's economic recovery.  You can urge state legislators to close the tax loopholes that keep corporations from paying their fair share in state taxes.

Despite being the eighth largest economy in the world, and an integral part of the U.S. economy in multiple sectors, the federal government has repeatedly refused to consider financial aid to help the state out of its budget shortfall. Meanwhile, our Congressional representatives in the House are being asked to vote for $108 billion in loan guarantees for European banks.  

There are a number of California Representatives who are on the fence.  Remind them that they represent California, and that our state is a bigger economy than many European countries, and needs the aid just as much.  Names and contact info here.

Save CalWORKS!

CalWORKS is our state's welfare-to-work program, which helps to get families off welfare and into jobs which help them support themselves and help to grow our economy. This highly successful program assists families in the lowest socio-economic bracket, and is a vital safety net program for women with children, and for many victims of domestic violence. CalWORKS provides temporary cash assistance, food, child care, health care, job training, and continued education. 525,000 families a month will lose aid and services under the Governor's proposal to eliminate the program.

Healthy families are taxpayers! Elimination of this program is not only mean spirited, but poor economics. It has been shown that for every dollar invested in social safety-net programs, we get a return of $1.25 or more! This is one of the best and most effective ways the state can spend money during this economic crisis. Perpetuating poverty does not help CA’s economy. Read an LA Times article on the economic impact of eliminating CalWORKS. 

Contact your state Senator and Assemblymember and urge them to protect CalWORKS in the state budget!

California 2009 State Budget Crisis Poised to Devastate Poor, Sick, Elderly, and Children

The Governor has eliminated from his budget all proposals for taxes and fee increases. In addition to last week’s cuts he has added elimination of CalWORKs, Healthy Families Program and all state monies to the Office of AIDS. He is focusing on programs not mandated by the federal government.

These permanent cuts would include:

• Elimination of the Healthy Families program, which provides with matching State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) federal funds, health insurance for over 900,000 children from low income families.
• Eliminating Family PACT, a program that provides health care for millions of Californians each year, including birth control, cancer screenings, and STD testing and treatment. 
• Elimination of the CalWORKS welfare-to-work program, that serves over 500,000 people. 
• Even deeper cuts to Medi-Cal, eliminating certain Medi-Cal state funded, and cutting state funds for the Community Care Licensing program. 
• $55.5 million in new cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which serves tens of thousands of Californians with AIDS. 
• Elimination of several critical community-based senior programs under the Department of Aging including the Multipurpose Senior Services Program (MSSP). 
• Cutting billions from K-12 schools, possibly shortening the school year by a week. Phasing out the Cal Grant program, and reducing funding for the UC and CSU system by $335 million on top of $415 million already cut from their funds.  
• Furloughing state employees two days a month, a 5% across the board paycut for state workers, and eliminating up to 5,000 positions. Reducing the court system by an additional 10%, reducing vocational training for prisoners, and releasing non-violent offenders a year early. 
• Cutting $70 million from state parks, closing up to 80% of them. 
• Slashing homecare workers’ wages to just $8.00 an hour, and reducing the hours of care seniors and people with disabilities receive. (SEIU is suing to stop these cuts.)

With Rejection of Ballot Measures, California Budget Crisis Moves to the Next Step

California voters' rejection of the budget ballot measures on Tuesday puts the state in a precarious fiscal position, and confirms the extent to which our budget process is broken.  This could potentially end up as a positive for the state, since it could enable a ballot measure to do away with the current 2/3 majority needed in the legislature to pass a budget. In fact, a coalition of organizations has already created a petition to encourage just that.  

The real question now is how the state will work to solve the immediate financial crisis.  The federal government may be called on to help secure loans for the state.  Some are even claiming that the federal government will use California's bankruptcy as an excuse for stripping states' rights.  However, California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says there will not be any additional federal money coming to deal with the state’s financial crisis. Additional spending cuts are expected to be part of the budget solution.

Bass and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg have reassured Californians that the budget process will be completed quickly to prevent a budget shortfall in July, and maintain the state's credit rating.  They also announced measures being taken to improve the budget process and increase openness.