Thread: What Obama's budget plan may mean for California

What Obama's budget plan may mean for California

More than $1 billion would go to the state for Medicaid and to help jail illegal immigrants.

February 1, 2010 | 5:39 p.m.

Reporting from Washington - California stands to receive more than $1 billion from President Obama's budget plan to help cover healthcare for the poor and the cost of jailing illegal immigrants.

The budget proposal includes $25 billion in additional Medicaid funds for states, of which California is projected to receive $1.5 billion. States received a funding boost in the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed one year ago. Obama's budget plan would extend the funding through mid-2011.

The proposal also includes $330 million to help states pay for jailing illegal immigrants. The money has long been a priority for California officials, who argue that local and state taxpayers should not have to bear the burden of Washington's failure to control America's borders. California's expected $90-million share would represent a fraction of the nearly $1 billion the state probably will spend this year on incarcerating illegal immigrants.

A spokesman for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said a bipartisan group of senators would be working to increase that funding.

Still, the White House's inclusion of the money is an acknowledgment of the bipartisan support in Congress for the prison funding; last year, lawmakers rejected Obama's effort to eliminate the payments.

The budget proposal drew a predictably mixed reaction from California's fractured congressional delegation.

Cheering the proposed funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood) said: "After years of working to maximize funding that both Presidents [George W.] Bush and Obama zeroed out in the past, I am pleased to see President Obama responding to congressional priorities."

On another funding matter, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) expressed concerns that a proposed cut to the Army Corps of Engineers' budget could reduce the amount available for an important flood-control project in Orange County.

And Boxer, while expressing support for most of Obama's budget plan, disagreed with his effort to end funding for Boeing C-17 military cargo planes that are assembled in Long Beach.

As for the state's GOP delegation, Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands, top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, criticized the budget proposal for its tax increases and what he says is excessive spending. "In my view, this bloated, unbalanced budget request should be dead on arrival," he said.

richard.simon@ latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and- ... 0760.story

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Schwarzenegger's plan could cut deep for those who depend on state stipends

Posted at 12:08 AM on Monday, Feb. 01, 2010
By Susan Ferriss - sferriss@sacbee.com

For Capitol insiders, it's easy to chalk it up as a bluff when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes terminating welfare-to-work and in-home care for the disabled if California doesn't get billions in federal money he's requested.

But it's no chess game for a welfare-to-work mother seriously trying to find a job, or a person in a wheelchair whose living stipend has already been slashed twice in one year.

Social services spending is a big chunk of the state budget and is often cited as a prime example of runaway spending.

Indeed, national comparisons show California is home to nearly a third of all welfare-to-work recipients. The typical $694 monthly welfare-to-work grant a mother and two children receive in California trails only Alaska and New York. The $845 monthly grant for low-income elderly or disabled individuals under the SSI/SSP program likewise is third-highest in the nation.

But numbers also show that California's safety net is getting less generous all the time.

Disabled people with little or no other income live on a combined grant: federal Supplemental Security Income, SSI, and the State Supplemental Payment, SSP.

The biggest monthly SSI/SSP grant that an individual can get now is $845, down from $907 a year ago.

That has hit many disabled people who count every penny, because they've also had Medi-Cal benefits cut.

Last July, the state eliminated coverage for dental, vision and hearing care, counseling, podiatry and four other services that federal law doesn't require states to provide.

Antoinette Darden, who has diabetes, is blind and has a spinal cord injury, could risk amputation without professional foot care.

"If anything gets out of control, I'm in trouble. But it's $40 now to get my toenails cut and feet checked," said Darden, 53, of Sacramento.

If Darden moved to a nursing home, the state couldn't take away these benefits because federal law prohibits withholding services critical to the health of the disabled. At the same time, the state acknowledges that the public cost of institutionalizing disabled people is far greater than if they live in their own homes.

Cuts are likely to continue.

As California still struggles to balance its budget, the governor is proposing to cut the state's share of SSI/SSP grants again, to $156 a month for an individual's maximum grant from $171 a month. That would reduce the joint federal-state maximum monthly grant for an individual to $830.

In 1990, or 20 years ago, the state's SSP contribution to an individual's grant was $244 a month.

As the state makes cuts, the impact falls indiscriminately on the disabled, whether a person can walk or is quadriplegic.

That has prompted the independent Legislative Analyst's Office to urge legislators to consider "more targeted changes" to protect "the most vulnerable" from losing care.

Another big-ticket item that has been rolled back by cuts or cost-of-living freezes is the California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids program, or CalWORKS.

The maximum grant a CalWORKS mother and two children in Sacramento together can receive is $661 a month, less than it was 22 years ago, in 1988.

CalWORKS comes with an obligation to study, train or perform some work, but a single parent with an infant can be excused to stay home for a year to care for the baby.

Paradoxically, to save money, the state is encouraging single parents with children up to 2 years old or those with two children under 6 to volunteer to stay home.

That's because the state last year slashed child care and transportation subsidies that help welfare-to-work parents, mostly mothers, return to school or the workplace.

No estimates are in yet for how many parents have volunteered to stay home, a choice offered until July 2011.

This year, the governor proposes cutting CalWORKS grants by 15.7 percent, rolling back dollar amounts to what they were in the mid-1980s.

Last year, he pushed through CalWORKS changes designed to save money by increasing sanctions against families living on welfare.

Adults already can lose grants if they fail to comply with CalWORKS' get-to-work rules, but their children's grants can continue.

Under changes effective in July 2011, parents will have three months to show initiative to get off welfare or their stipends will be halted. The children's portion of the family's grant will be cut by 25 percent after six months and 50 percent after nine months.

Lizelda Lopez, spokeswoman for the California Department of Social Services, explained in dollars what this would mean for a parent with two children in counties with the highest cost of living.

"You could go from $694 a month," Lopez said, "to $278 a month."

http://www.fresnobee.com/1148/story/1804457.html

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Obama budget continues Fed underfunding to California
by Christopher A. Guzman
Tue, Feb 02nd 2010

According to the Los Angeles Times, President Obama's recently released budget plan will allocate more than $1 billion to California. Besides going toward healthcare for needy families, funds will also be apportioned to jailing for illegal immigrants convicted of crimes.

Specifically, funding would go toward the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, a program created by way of the Immigrant and Neutrality Act of 1990. The goal of the program is to have funds available for when illegal immigrants are incarcerated in the U.S. prison system.

Past funds for the program have gone toward such costs as correction officer salaries, overtime, medical and mental health services, etc. The move by the administration was met with a mostly welcome tone from the state’s politicians--from Senator Boxer to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Lakewood).

A number of California’s officials, the Times says, have long argued that Californians should not have to pay for the consequences of Washington not properly securing the nation’s borders. To an extent, these California officials are correct. The federal government should be more concerned with protecting the border states from an onslaught of illegal immigration.

Due to its growing illegal immigration problem, the US does indeed need immigration reform legislation that is not legislation in name only. Washington should deal with the growing illegal immigration that’s infecting border states from San Diego, CA to Laredo, Texas because it is their responsibility to provide for the common defense of this nation.

While California is the poster state of the damage that the broken immigration system can cause, it is a scapegoat to say that Washington is to blame for California’s illegal immigration problems. The quick and easy fix of looking to Washington for more funds easily leads down a slippery slope to look to them for other policy solutions (i.e. to look to Washington to bail California out of other problems the state faces--from providing welfare benefits to healthcare).

Fairly recently, Californians witnessed such an entitlement attitude when Governor Schwarzenegger demanded more money from the federal level. California voters ought to be tired of their politicians beating the same drum, always looking for someone to blame for the state’s problems instead of taking responsibility. Voters deserve better than the usual finger-pointing that comes from the traditional two party system.

Californians are in need of candidates who will present fresh policy solutions for issues like immigration. As the 2010 gubernatorial race comes around the bend pretty soon, the state’s citizens need to keep their political senses open for such candidates.

The only question is: Is he or she out there? Or, will California continue down the road of business as usual?

http://caivn.org

Californians are in need of candidates who will present fresh policy solutions for issues like immigration. As the 2010 gubernatorial race comes around the bend pretty soon, the state’s citizens need to keep their political senses open for such candidates.

Some one who will ban Sanctuary Policies and ENFORCE THE LAW is what is needed.

Obama's budget calls for reimbursement for cost of jailing undocumented immigrants


06:58 PM PST on Friday, February 5, 2010

By BEN GOAD
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - For the first time in a decade, the White House's federal budget proposal contains funding to partially reimburse states for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants.

California's share of $330 million proposed for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program would cover only a fraction of the state's expenses related to jailing undocumented immigrants. But Inland Southern California's federal lawmakers say the funding represents an important acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the federal government is responsible for at least a portion of the costs.

And the money's inclusion gives Congress a better position than in years past to negotiate a larger amount as the budget process moves forward, they said.

"Last year there was none -- so you start from a point of none, and it's very hard to build it up," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The fight over reimbursement funding in recent years has seemed like a rerun of a bad television show in the eyes of California's state and federal lawmakers. Each year, the president released a budget proposing to "zero out" funding for the program.

Lawmakers then fought to add it back through passage of annual spending bills, though the total set aside for the program never amounted to more than a fraction of the costs incurred.

In California, the state Department of Corrections expects to spend roughly $970 million in the current fiscal year to incarcerate more than 19,000 undocumented immigrants, or about 11 percent of the state's prison population.

Obama's $330 million proposal, unveiled this week as part of his annual budget request, would send about $90 million to California. The proposal falls well short of what California needs as officials struggle to close a massive budget deficit, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Finance Department.

"Even at that level, California is getting back less than 10 cents on every dollar," Palmer said. "It's not equitable and not fair in the governor's view."

Increased federal funding to repay the costs of jailing illegal immigrants was near the top of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's list last month during two days of meetings with lawmakers and top Obama administration officials in Washington.

The issue is one on which Democrats and Republicans who represent California agree, and lawmakers in both parties lauded the inclusion of the funding and vowed to work to boost the amount in the months to come.

In the House, much of that work will take place in the Appropriations Committee, where Reps. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, and Ken Calvert, R-Corona, both serve.

Lewis was relieved that the Obama administration decided against the "cynical move" of zeroing out the funding to lower the total budget cost, while knowing that Congress would put some amount of the money back.

Calvert, who along with Lewis has criticized the Obama administration for spending too much in its first year, said he would look for other places to trim the budget to make room for the funding.

"While $330 million is not nearly enough to reimburse state and local governments for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens, I also recognize that times are tough and Congress needs to buckle down on spending," Calvert said.

"Illegal immigration is clearly a federal priority and as an appropriator, I will be looking to support the most cost-effective programs such as SCAAP, but any increase to SCAAP will only be pursued by an offset from another program that is a lesser priority."

www.pe.com