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California State Budget Needed Now So Prenatal Health Clinics Can Remain Open

By Fabian Nunez
Speaker of the California Assembly

Today I visited the Birthing Project in Sacramento, a health clinic a few blocks away from the State Capitol. The Birthing Project staff works very hard on behalf of their clients to increase healthy pregnancies and successful births – something you’d think typically anti-choice Republican politicians would rhapsodize about. Instead, the Birthing Project and health clinics like it throughout California -- who treat newborns and seniors and everyone in between -- are in danger of closing their doors or eliminating services because a handful of Republican State Senators are refusing to provide one additional vote to pass the state budget.

With Senate Republicans holding out on the budget, state payments to keep clinics like the Birthing Project open stopped two weeks ago. For facilities that only get by on the skin of their teeth anyway, not getting these state funds is a huge blow. The harm caused to clinics like these is totally unnecessary and totally reversible -- as soon as one more Republican member of the State Senate does his job, finds his conscience, and votes for the state budget.

The Assembly passed a budget that meets the constitutional requirement to be balanced back on July 20. That budget has a reserve of $3.4 billion – the highest in history and more than a billion dollars higher than what the Republican Governor proposed in his budget. The budget makes deep cuts in a number of areas that were not acceptable to Democrats, but, in the spirit of compromise and a responsible effort to enact a budget, we reluctantly agreed to these cuts.

The balanced budget passed by Democrats and Republicans in the Assembly is supported by all Senate Democrats, Governor Schwarzenegger and one Republican Senator who broke ranks so Californians wouldn’t be harmed by an ongoing budget stalemate.

The constitution requires a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature to pass a budget. In fact, two-thirds of the legislature does support the Assembly budget – but one more Republican vote in the Senate is needed for actual passage.

Senate Republicans are holding up the budget over totally unrelated issues, such as their desire to weaken CEQA, California’s premier environmental law, to benefit oil companies and developers. That’s not a budget issue (and it’s not going to happen).

Some of the Senate Republican holdouts did vote for last year's budget, which is interesting given that the reserve last year was only $2.1 billion, compared to the $3.4 billion reserve in this budget. Last year's budget had a "structural deficit" (the amount expenditures for a year exceed revenues collected in that year) of $6.9 billion compared to $699 million in this budget. Last year's budget increased spending 9.2% while revenues were projected to grow only 1.7%. This budget does the opposite, limiting expenditure growth to 1.3% while revenues are projected to grow 6%.

This budget has been described, accurately, as a dream Republican budget. But as long as the “Gang of Fourteen” Republican holdouts in the Senate keep holding the budget hostage, it’s a nightmare for the Birthing Project and for other important programs that rely on state funding.

It’s time for all Californians to turn up the pressure on those 14 Senate Republicans to counteract the hyper-partisan pleas they are getting to hold out.

Like most Californians, the people at the Birthing Project don’t care what political web sites say. They don’t care who’s ahead in the Senate Republican leadership fight. They don’t care who’s running for Lt. Governor in 2010.

They just want to be able to do their jobs.

Which means one more Republican Senator needs to do his job, find his conscience, and vote for this responsible budget.

Posted on August 13, 2007

Comments

The fine staff of this clinic will indeed be able to continue perform their jobs if the legislature will just pass an emergency funding bill to ensure the continued payment of state expenditures while a fiscally responsible budget is being negotiated. Such a bill has been proposed by Republican Senator Jeff Denham. Sadly, Democrats blocked the bill, attempting to strongarm Republicans into voting for a budget that spends more than the state takes in. Sadly, many of our neediest citizens may be out of luck in the coming days becuase of the political games of the majority party.

Posted by: Andy Nevis at August 14, 2007 12:55 AM

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