The Senate Cut California’s Kids Out of the Stimulus
Unemployment in California is already near 10%. The catastrophe has begun.
As we Twitter around, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s Democrats are slashing at California’s budget. A $40 billion dollar definitely no deficit is no joke. And since our Governor and the Republicans in the Legislature who have enough votes to prevent any budget from passing have been unwilling to pass any tax increase that doesn’t regressively punish the poor, you can bet one day soon Californians are going to wake up to a nightmare scenario.
Millions of people will be put out of work just as community colleges are cut. And that’s the good news. Adult education in some districts may be completely eliminated.
Californians one hope was the Stimulus bill supported by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. By now you know what happened. To appease three Republican lawmakers, who are scared shitless by Obama’s numbers anyway, $80 billion dollars or 600,000 jobs were cut from the bill.
The bulk of the cuts were made to prospective funding to support education spending by the states. This crucial money isn’t onloy going to create jobs and opportunities for kids and laid-off workers, it will save jobs. Lots of jobs.
California’s predicament foreshadows the problems the rest of the country will face soon. Services are stressed and politicians are unwilling to ask the rich to pay more in taxes. It’s an untenable situation.
Governor Schwarzenegger, speak to your Republican colleagues. Let them know that their ironic attempts to teach us about spending will cost California too dearly. Remind your peers that the Republicans let the Depression go for years before taking any serious action. See if you can get them to remember what the Hoover brand did for the GOP.
Sending money to the states now is crucial to this economy, and Washington can’t let California go down the drain. If three Republicans can cost us the educational future of our most vulnerable citizens, then we are begging for a depression, a depression that will cost our grandkids more than government spending ever could.
The Congress needs to restore the state funding for education. And they need to do it now.