Schwarzenegger Cuts Billions of Dollars In Spending

“the people have spoken”

Sounds familiar? On May 19th, California held the Special Election on how the California government should mandate its budget problems. Before the election, and even right now, California is expecting 20billion dollars budget shortfall. Governor Schwarzenegger warned California that he would cut billions of dollars in public spending if California voters don't pass the budget propositions.

Now, after only one out of 6 propositions has passed, Governor Schwarzenegger began to cut California's public spending. The cuts will hit the hardest in public schools, poor children and disabled people of California, and California state workers. The total cut of spending is estimated to be around 2 billion dollars.

If all the propositions have passed, the shortfall would have been estimated to be around 15 billion dollars instead of 20billion dollars. Even though there would have been a large budget shortfall, it would have been better than nothing.

But again, the people of California has decided to not pass the propositions.
“the people have spoken”


source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/us/31calif.html?hp

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Comment By Taka Laka:

Alright, even though I am a liberal resident of California, and I personally approve Governor Schwarzenegger. Whether you are Democrats or Republicans, the budget cuts are unavoidable.

Other Californian might argue that California should raise its tax rates instead of cutting public funds. If that is an argument, why didn't people vote "yes" on every propositions during the Special Election? One of the prop specifically stated that it will extends the temporary tax hike in California for additional two years.

Only suggestion that I have for Governor Schwarzenegger is to actually look into how each program is using its money. Currently, major portion of California budget is going toward the education. The education program is definitely important; however, the government should look into how the money is spent in public schools. Only required materials for public school is books, teachers, and some administrators. Currently, our school is spending millions of dollars towards junk like LCD monitors for what god knows, digital school board display, random ugly statue, and etc. Most of these stuffs costs millions of dollars of tax payers money. For this reason, if there are 1,000 schools spending millions dollars on craps, the total will add up to billions.

California has Silicon Valley and Hollywood. This budget shortfall shouldn't be this bad.