EPCC News

July 21, 2009

Contact: Jerry Esguerra

Phone: (818) 749-0272

CALIFORNIA BUDGET : DEEP CUTS FOR THE POOR, NO TAXES FOR THE RICH

Los Angeles-- The Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC) strongly condemns the California Legislature ( the two parties )and the Governor for the its latest assaults on all CAlifornians.

The EPCC denounces the so-called compromise on the budget that added untold hardships on the people of California.

Because the the state budget was drafted with the assumption that these revenues would continue to rise. Once the housing crisis hit, the bottom fell out of the state’s fiscal planning.To make matters worse, during the economic boom, members of the legislature voted huge tax breaks for their friends in big business. If the big businesses were paying taxes at the same rate they did 20 years ago, there would be no state budget crisis at all!

Fight Back: Stop Budget Cuts!



Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed "solution" to the deficit and the two parties were united in an assult againt the people. They made major cuts in education, health programs and social services. These includes the following:



Proposed education cuts include reducing spending for K-12 education, reducing the school year by 7.5 days and slashing K-12 home-to-school-transportation by 65 percent.



For community colleges and higher education, Schwarzenegger is eliminating Cal Grants—approximately 300,000 Californians would lose student aid that enables them to enroll in higher education.



The University of California and California State University systems would see an approximate $717.5 million funding cut. As a result, fees and tuition for students will go up as colleges try to make up the difference in lost state funding.



Major cuts in health programs include the elimination of the Healthy Families Program, ending health coverage for more than 940,000 children. Schwarzenegger cuts would also include: limiting Medi-Cal benefits and eliminating certain state-only Medi-Cal programs, Medi-Cal Adult Day Health Care benefits, state funding for various community clinic programs, funding for HIV education and prevention and much more.



Major cuts in social services include the elimination of the CalWORKs Program, ending cash assistance and childcare to more than 1.1 million of the state’s most vulnerable children. The cuts include reducing grants for Supplemental Security Income and cutting the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, and the California Food Assistance Program. The budget cuts would also reduce funding for Child Welfare Services and funding for the Domestic Violence Program.

Whether it’s San Francisco, Los Angeles, city small or large across the nation, we should join together to fight the real enemy, the ruling rich, and demand "No Cutbacks!"

A united struggle of working people of all nationalities, employed and unemployed, able-bodied and disabled, young and old—can stop the cuts and win what we need.