Linda Mackingtee, a 53-year-old homecare worker taking care of her ailing 83-year-old mother
Governor Proposes Budget with Deep Cuts, Harsh Real-Life Consequences
Linda Mackingtee, a 53-year-old homecare worker who takes care of her ailing 83-year-old mother, has a message for the governor, who unveiled a budget that would cut her wage from just over $8 an hour to the minimum and remove benefits.
"Stop messing with the people who are the most vulnerable," said Mackingtee, a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 434b. "It's already a struggle every day... We're teeter-tottering, meeting this deadline, meeting this bill."
Mackingtee is just one of hundreds of thousands of lower-income Californians who would be hit hard by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget with billions in cuts to health, education, and social services.
On January 10, Schwarzenegger released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2005/06. Advocates for working families, lower-income people, people with disabilities, and children responded with swift criticism. The governor also proposed a mechanism that will result in automatic spending cuts across the board if spending outpaces revenue, an approach that legislators and advocates see as particularly disruptive and threatening to California's already tattered safety net. Schwarzenegger later commented to the Sacramento Bee that he did not want to "feed the beast" of the public sector, a remark that echoes far-right "starve the beast" rhetoric and triggered a stinging response from Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, who noted its far-right overtones.
Assemblymember Judy Chu (D-49th) characterized the cuts as "devastating," and said they "will leave seniors and the working poor on the streets." Chu also called the automatic "Robo-Cut" proposal "heartless" and "brainless."
Budget expert Jean Ross, of the California Budget Project, noted that the proposed budget hits low-income families the hardest. Her organization conducts independent fiscal and policy analysis and public education to improve public policies affecting the economic and social well-being of low- and middle-income Californians.
"A disproportionate share of the reductions in the governor's budget will affect lower-income Californians and seniors," said Ross. The governor's budget "targets the state's most vulnerable families."
Ross and others point to a series of deep cuts to CalWORKS, K-12 education, the In-Home Support Services Program, and health care as key areas of concern.
CalWORKS
The governor's budget proposes four primary cuts totaling $650 million to CalWORKS, California's low-income family support program: cutting grants by 6.5%, reducing work incentives by lowering the exempt ceiling and the percentage of income exempt above the ceiling, eliminating cost of living adjustments (COLAs), and reducing the amount of time families are eligible for subsidized childcare.
When these cuts are added up, a typical family will face harsh, real-life consequences, according to Nancy Berlin, coordinator of the Welfare Reform Advocacy Project at the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness.
"A family could lose $100-$160 a month in income," said Berlin. "That's an enormous amount for low-income families. Sometimes people like the governor don't understand what $100 means for a lower-income family. It's not just a nice dinner out. We're talking about diapers for an infant or the amount they spend to keep the lights on."
Ursula Guevara, who has a one-year-old daughter and is attending Pasadena City College, is a participant in the CalWORKS program who works part-time. She spends $200 a month on rent, $50 in utilities, $80 for car insurance, $90 for gas to commute to school and work, $40 for diapers, and makes the rest of her limited monthly income stretch to cover food, clothes, and other necessities. A substantial cut to her $568 CalWORKS grant would mean "cutting out something we need, not something we want," she said.
K-12 Education
In education, the state's major stakeholders (including teachers', administrators' and parents' groups) issued a joint statement, characterizing the $2.3 billion in proposed cuts to education as "unconscionable."
"California schools have suffered more than $9.8 billion in cuts in the last four years," said the California Teachers Association, the California PTA, and others in their joint statement. "This has meant school closures, increases in class size, layoffs of teachers and support staff, and a devastating shortage of librarians, counselors and nurses. Many schools lack basic supplies and instructional materials."
In-Home Support Services
For the 320,000 lower-income seniors and disabled people who depend on homecare and the 265,000 workers like Linda Mackingtee who provide that care, the governor's targeted cuts of $152 -216 million a year would be devastating. The IHSS program is being targeted for the second year in a row, and, while workers successfully fought off the worst of the proposed cuts last year, they did lose ground. Homecare workers struggled throughout the 1990s to unionize, increase their wages above the minimum wage, and get health care benefits. The governor recently said that the low-wage homecare workers were being "greedy" to fight for a living wage.
"If this goes through, a lot of workers will have to quit to look for better jobs," said Mackingtee. The older people and the people with disabilities "are panicking" because they're concerned they won't be able to get help. If that were to happen, the state could wind up footing the much higher bill for nursing home care.
Healthcare
Anthony Wright, the executive director of Health Access, a statewide coalition of groups dedicated to increasing access to health care to all, says the cuts affect millions of individuals directly and strain the overall health care system that everyone relies on.
Wright cited as an example the proposed transition to managed care for hundreds of thousands of elderly MediCal recipients. The transition will mean that, in addition to patients no longer being be able to choose their doctors, public hospitals already teetering on the brink of insolvency will receive a capitated, lump-sum payment instead of fees for each service rendered. This further threatens a distressed component of our health care safety net.
Other cuts include requiring half a million Californians who are near poverty to pay a medical premium and limiting three million Californians' access to dental care.
Fighting for a Humane Budget
Advocates point out that there's a crucial missing ingredient in the governor's budget: increasing taxes. Berlin notes that Schwarzenegger frequently cites spending increases in the 1990s, but fails to include tax cuts made during the same period, another form of spending increase, but one that would require a 2/3 vote to reverse.
Chu and others say that the public will have to get engaged. "Advocates and progressive leaders still have a chance to educate the public about the devastation of the cuts and the governor's Robo-Cut proposal. The voters of this state have the power to push the governor to do the right thing," said Chu.
A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that Californians don't want new taxes — but don't want cuts either. When faced with a choice between cutting health and other social services or increasing the rate for the highest earners, 69% said they preferred the tax increases.
"Every moderate and progressive organization, as well as individuals, needs to make a humane budget a top priority this year," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU/SC. "We cannot allow a governor who's out of step with Californians' values to destroy our social safety net — the legacy of the New Deal is something we must fight to preserve."
FEBRUARY 2005
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Governor Proposes Budget with Deep Cuts, Harsh Real-Life Consequences
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LAPD Officer Shoots and Kills Youth in South Los Angeles
California Expands Domestic Partnership Rights
Civil Rights & International Human Rights Advocate to Lead ACLU/SC
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