SOS: Brown budget details missing

31 January 2011 |permalink | email article

The California governor delivers his State of the State address today but voters looking for specifics about how to grapple with a $25-billion deficit won’t learn much. Instead of offering some specifics Brown will reprise themes in his inaugural address and budget analysis in early January. His budget crunchers have looked at how the state would be affected by billions more in cuts but will not make the findings public.

A statewide poll a week ago showed that the 53% of the public support the governor’s tax plan, and even more support raising taxes if schools, public universities and health care programs are spared from further cuts. The expectation is lawmakers will put the budget issue on the June ballot. Brown’s use of the bully pulpit will be key. But unclear is whether wide support could be undermined by organized opposition from Republicans and business interests, with millions potentially spent to defeat the tax measure.

A huge hurdle for Brown is opposition by hundreds of city and county governments to save their redevelopment agencies from the chopping bock which he proposes to eliminate but which officials say generate $2 billion in tax revenues and 300,00 jobs annually. Brown’s strident reply: the redevelopment agencies are “piggy banks” for budget balancers the state needs and will save $1.7 billion.

The agencies were created in 1940 as a way to revitalize blighted areas. Many have rushed to transfer money from their redevelopment agencies to foil the governor’s proposal. The Los Angeles City Council quickly allocated $52 million for a new art museum on Grand Avenue created by multibillionaire Eli Broad, raising serious questions about other worthy civic priorities. 

Brown is among governors in both parties confronting massive budget gaps that will face essential cuts in services including schools and looking for a way to slash the growth of Medicaid rolls. He’s proposing to cut Medicaid by $1.7 billion, in part by limiting beneficiaries to just 10 doctor visits a year and six prescriptions per month. The cap on doctors’ visits would affect only ten percent of Medicaid recipients, many of whom are among the sickest beneficiaries. This is another in a series of moral choices facing the governor.

Read ‘em and weep

“We need to cut these things that aren’t constitutionally mandated, that are kind of on the periphery, the fluffery, like NPR and the National Endowment of the Arts.“ – Sarah Palin, a clueless Fox News contributor, blasting President Obama’s State of the Union address.

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