"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine." - - - William Blum

August 13, 2009

A colleague nurse of mine received this message from her Republican state senator:

Dear XXXXXXX R.N.:

Thank you for your email regarding your concern with Governor Schwarzenegger’s decision to make additional cuts to California’s 2009-10 Budget before he signed it.

Unfortunately, the Governor had to make additional cuts to several programs, including Healthy Families, in part because of a key measure that was defeated in the Assembly. The budget package included a provision—that passed in the Senate but failed in the Assembly—which would have immediately provided $100 million to the state’s general fund by allowing the Tranquillion Ridge Oil Drilling project to move forward. In addition to the $100 million this project would generate in the first year, it would bring $1.8 billion to the state’s general fund over the course of the project.

It’s important to keep in mind that this project would use only one existing platform to tap into the state’s immense oil resources and has received support from both state and local environmental groups.

The situation is frustrating to me and my Senate Republicans colleagues, but the Governor had no choice but to make additional cuts to vital services given the fact that he is required by law to balance the budget and the Assembly sent down a package that had $400 million less then he expected.

I would suggest you contact Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and urge her to pass the Tranquillion Ridge Oil Drilling project bill and send it to the governor for his signature. Doing so would allow most of the program cuts to be restored immediately.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding other legislative issues of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Senator Runner

That’s pure b.s. because Arnold made the line-item cuts as payback for not getting his offshore drilling, not to save $$. Notice that no names of “both state and local environmental groups” are mentioned…. typical Republican ploy. The Republicans are just holding children’s health hostage in order to appease the oil industry special interests.

3 comments:

muckdog said...

Well, new oil drilling would provide revenue to the state.

Expanding health care costs the state revenue.

Rumors are that CA will announce another multi-billion budget deficit by October. More spending cuts are coming, unless the legislature figures out a way to create more revenue.

It would be nice if the legislature created more revenue via pro-growth measures, instead of penalizing residents and local businesses with even higher taxes.

tim said...

Muckdogs ludicrous talking points don't even deserve to acknowledged. He's kind of like some nutcase schizo who walks up to you in the grocery store and tells you he's Napolean and he commands you to buy him ice cream. But seriously, Arnold's budget is lterally a death sentence on some of our Californians. The Republican Party's anti-government/pro-big capital obsession has become actually murderous! We have to stop them.

Mike said...

What Tim said.