At the eleventh hour, CA has a budget

Gov. Brown signed a budget today – the final day of California’s fiscal year.  The $85.9 billion spending plan does not add any additional cuts to Health and Human Services, but slashes deeper into higher education. 

The state legislature and Gov. Brown approved the majority of cuts to the 2011-2012 budget last March, including a $1.5 billion reduction in Medi-Cal spending, a nearly $1 billion cut in welfare-to-work and a $178 million reduction in SSI/SSP payments to low-income elderly and disabled.

The state cut the University of California and California State University systems by an additional $150 million – on top of the $500 million each back in March – which will result in tuition hikes. Community college fees also increased by $10 per unit.

Brown failed to garner Republican support in time for extending taxes on sales and vehicles, and they will expire tomorrow.  However, he has vowed to pursue a ballot initiative this fall, asking voters to reinstate those temporary tax hikes in order to generate state revenue – and prevent additional cuts to crucial programs and services for the needy.

State Budget: Square One

For the second time in 25 years, the California Legislature approved an on-time budget by June 15, the constitutional deadline. Less than 24 hours later, Governor Brown vetoed the entire budget, sending state legislators back to the drawing board.

Democratic leaders initially said their approved budget was an "imperfect" solution – however Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Pérez were both “dismayed” over the Governor’s rejection.

In a letter to lawmakers, Brown said the plan is "not a balanced solution. It continues big deficits for years to come and adds billions of dollars in new debt. It also contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings. Finally, it is not financeable and therefore will not allow us to meet our obligations as they occur."

Some key measures of the vetoed budget included: cutting the University of California and California State University systems by an addition $150 million each, and taking $1 billion from First 5 county commissions – a move that’s already facing litigation. 

Gov. Brown has until the end of June to convince Republicans to support temporary tax extensions as a “bridge” to a special election this fall. The sales and vehicle taxes expire as of June 30^th – the end of the fiscal year. If not extended, raising these taxes back to current levels would be considered a “new tax” rather than an “extension” – a label much less favored by voters.

In order to raise taxes, there must be a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature. Since the Governor’s original budget proposal in January, he’s been unsuccessful in obtaining the four GOP votes (two in each house) to meet the supermajority requirement.

Last year’s passage of Proposition 25 would strip lawmakers of their pay for each day a “balanced” budget is late. State Controller John Chiang has thereby halted legislators’ pay, citing the approved budget as “insufficient” in meeting Prop 25 guidelines. Chiang said he determined that the budget spent $89.75 billion but only provided $87.9 billion in revenues, leaving a difference of $1.85 billion.

"My office's careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished," Chiang said. "The numbers simply did not add up.”

Anti-Choice Billboards Hit L.A., Oakland

If you’ve driven by L.A.’s Memorial Coliseum on Martin Luther King Boulevard in the past few months, perhaps you’ve seen the billboard featuring an African American child alongside the words “Endangered Species.” To a casual onlooker in a hurry, this message might not be very clear – until one sees the website, “toomanyaborted.com”, across the bottom.

This ad was the brainchild of The Radiance Foundation, an anti-choice organization that also supports the black genocide conspiracy theory – that pro-choice entities like Planned Parenthood coerce women of color into terminating their pregnancies. Not only are the billboards outwardly racist, but they also objectify black children, vilify black women (as well as reproductive health advocates) and use real health disparities to create a myth.

The campaign began in Georgia and quickly spread to other major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and most recently Oakland.

Life Always, a Texas-based anti-choice group, was responsible for the controversial billboard in New York City’s SoHo district last February. It featured an image of a young black girl with the heading, “The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb.” The billboard was promptly taken down after massive public outcry and involvement from advocates and city council members.

The billboard campaign did not stop with the black community; Los Angeles recently saw ads targeting Latinas: “The Most Dangerous Place for a Latino is in the Womb.” However, with quick activism of groups such as California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, the billboards were gone in a matter of days.

Last week, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-09) released a statement responding to the billboards making an appearance in her Oakland district. “I am deeply offended by the race-based billboards that are being displayed in my congressional district by the Radiance Foundation and Issues4Life,” she said. “These billboards stigmatize women of color and perpetuate myths about parenting skills and the types of women who seek and use abortion services. I have and will continue to believe that women have the fundamental rights to make decisions regarding their reproductive lives, and no woman’s choice should be subjected to scrutiny based on her ethnic background.”

The billboard on MLK Boulevard has since been removed and others have “timed out,” making way for the next advertiser. Unfortunately, The Radiance Foundation does not seem to be slowing down. The organization recently launched fifty more billboards in Atlanta to coincide with Juneteeth (June 19^th), the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery.