[courtesy of California Progress Report]

• Health budget keep January proposed cuts, goes further in directly denying coverage
• Hundreds of thousands of the poorest working families would lose coverage

By Hanh Kim Quach
Health Care Policy Coordinator
Health Access California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released the revised version of his budget proposal today, which makes deeper cuts in health and human services programs in order to address the state’s shortfall, which has grown by nearly $3 billion since he first released the budget in January. Altogether, the $100 billion general fund budget is $17.2 billion short.

“The crisis is very real and it is very serious,’’ the governor said. His proposal would attempt to bring in $11.7 billion in new money ($3.5 billion from deficit bonds of years past), and another $5 billion by selling the lottery’s income to Wall Street. Schwarzenegger would cut an additional $12.5 billion from state programs, on top of the $1 billion that was cut earlier this year to help minimize the deficit.

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Paul Rosenberg [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

In 1991, California faced a severe budget shortfall.  The LAO's documentation of how it was addressed can be found in its "State Spending Plan for 1991-92" [pdf], a 54-page document.  But to spare you the suspense (and me the time I don't have to read the whole thing), the entire story is neatly summarized in this chart:

What?!?!?  Almost three times as much in increased revenues compared to cost cuts???  Signed by Pete Wilson?  And herr Gropenator is a post-partisan?

Not so much.

An excerpt from the top of the LAO's document can be found on the flip

The State's Budget Funding Gap

The 1991-92 Governor's Budget, released in January of 1991, projected that the state faced an 18-month General Fund budget funding gap of $7.0 billion. As shown in Figure 1(next page), this funding gap represented the amount of savings, increased revenues, and other resources needed to offset:

• A projected 1990-91 fiscal year deficit of $1.9 billion.
  
• The projected 1991-92 operating shortfall of $3.7 billion which is the difference between 1991-92 "workload budget" expenditures and available revenues.
  read more »

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Market St. at Sutter, San Francisco, public transportation wagons, May 1906, from the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

From the Office of the Speaker of the California State Assembly

by dday [courtesy of Calitics: Soapblox California - Front Page]

The state of California is not generating the revenue that they expected.  This is clear and it's been known for some time.  The original budget that the Governor proposed, based on those sunny estimates, is obsolete.  In order to balance the budget, spending will have to decrease or revenue increased.  We know what choice the Republican will make.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to call for state spending cuts beyond those he proposed in January when he presents a revised budget to the Legislature next week, administration officials said Tuesday [...]

In January, Schwarzenegger outlined a $103 billion general-fund budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year and proposed balancing it by withholding cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients, cutting welfare payments to children whose parents fail to comply with work requirements, and reducing aid to the homeless, among other things.

The cuts to welfare will remain in the budget the Republican governor is slated to unveil on Monday, Palmer said. That could set up a showdown with Democratic lawmakers, who have made it clear they oppose reducing the social safety net for children.

But don't worry, there's a Plan B; privatizing the lottery!

over...