Arnold Schwarzenegger Cuts $656m from California Welfare

by Amy Judd | July 28, 2009 at 07:41 pm

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Arnold Schwarzenegger today cut $656 million from California welfare and healthcare programmes in a bid to cut some of the $26 billion budget deficit.

A governor is able to cut cash from state programmes, and today Governor Schwarzenegger made his first attempt to reach is $85 billion budget plan for 2010.

"Those are ugly cuts and I'm the only one that is really responsible for those cuts because the legislature left - they didn't want to make those cuts," he said.

The cuts include $80 million from child welfare, $61 million from county administration of government sponsored healthcare for the poor and $52 million from Aids prevention programmes.
A low cost health insurance programmed for poor children, called Healthy Families, will lost $50 million and state parks will lost $6.2 million.

Governor Schwarzenegger wants to fill a reserve fund for unexpected emergencies like earthquakes and wildfires.

But Darrell Steinberg, the state senate president and a Democrat, criticised the decision.

"We will fight to restore every dollar of additional cuts to health and human services … This is not the last word," Steinberg said in a statement.

Michael Genest, Schwarzenegger's finance director said that the state will have to borrow about $8 billion to $10 billion to cover the rest of 2009.