Democrats Likely To Spurn Four Key Proposals in Brown’s Budget

Democratic legislators in California are likely to disagree with Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on four main proposals in his revised fiscal year 2012-2013 budget plan, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/21).

Background

Brown's $91.4 billion revised budget plan calls for cutting:

• $1.2 billion from Medi-Cal -- California's Medicaid program -- by merging services for beneficiaries eligible for both Medi-Cal and Medicare and reducing payments to hospitals and nursing homes;
• $946.2 million from CalWORKs -- the state's welfare-to-work program -- by limiting the amount of time most adults could be on the program from four years to two years;
• $225 million from In-Home Supportive Services -- which provides services for the elderly and people who are blind or have disabilities -- by eliminating domestic assistance for beneficiaries in shared living environments and reducing worker payments by 7%; and
• $64 million from Healthy Families, California's Children's Health Insurance Program, by moving children out of the program (California Healthline, 5/21).

Contentious Proposals

According to the Chronicle, Democrats and the governor mostly will disagree on four proposals involving cuts to:

• CalWORKS;
• Cal Grants, which provides financial aid for low-income college students;
• Funding that the state provides families to subsidize child care expenses; and
• IHSS.

GOP Disputes Deep Cuts

Republican lawmakers criticized the idea that the state is making deep cuts, noting that only a small amount of Brown's proposals involve permanent reductions to programs that Democrats support.

Robert Huff (R-Diamond Bar) said, "It's definitely a 'kick the can down the road' budget because you're just not going to have any cuts there, or very few."

He said the portrayal of deep reductions is a political strategy to get voters to approve a compromise tax hike initiative that Brown is trying to qualify for the November ballot (San Francisco Chronicle, 5/21).