When you vote on November 2, 2010, remember three things: 1) absolute power corrupts; 2) much of our country's success is due to checks and balances; and 3) Governor Schwarzenegger, a Republican, accomplished quite a bit in recent budget negotiations:
It is often said that politics is the art of compromise and, let me tell you, this is exactly what this budget is -- it's compromise, where everyone came together. As you know, that we Republicans wanted to make cuts of more than $12 billion. Democrats were talking about borrowing billions of dollars or raising taxes of billions of dollars. Well, we all gave something up in order to get to that sweet spot of compromise.
It is often said that politics is the art of compromise and, let me tell you, this is exactly what this budget is -- it's compromise, where everyone came together. As you know, that we Republicans wanted to make cuts of more than $12 billion. Democrats were talking about borrowing billions of dollars or raising taxes of billions of dollars. Well, we all gave something up in order to get to that sweet spot of compromise.
Our final budget solution, therefore, can be broken down into three pieces. First of all, let me just go through the numbers:
- $7.4 billion in cuts,
- I will also be using my blue pencil to cut an additional $965 million.
- Then there's $5.4 billion in federal funds,
- $5.5 billion in fund shifting and other revenues.
When it comes to cuts, we were able to protect, of course, some of the key priorities:
- Number one, we protected education, kindergarten through 12th and we funded it at the same level as last year,
- Higher education will actually receive a $1.2 billion increase,
- Number three, we protected the budgets of our public safety men and women,
- We protected foster care services and even extended those services from the age of 18 to 21,
- And we ensured that our most vulnerable citizens can continue to have access to health and human services programs.
No comments:
Post a Comment