i saw a couple of stories today (here's one) about how california's economy is screwed, and basically how the guvuhnator hasn't done anything to fix the situation. and, really, fixing the fiscal mess that california was in was what said guhvuhnator ran on.
what i want to know is: why hasn't anyone done anything about it? we, and by we i mean the state of california because i voted against the recall, voted out gray davis because of the fiscal mess and the looming spectre of power problems caused by douchebag wilson. a overly democratic state voted out a democrat governor, and now this same state isn't even challenging the guy that's continued the problem for 5 more years?
way to go, california. way to go.
what do you think? my fellow dems, repubs and californians, chime in.
3 comments:
I don't think we can make enough cuts to bridge the deficit this year. But it is unlikely that the Governor will increase taxes because he is trying so hard to push across a health care reform.
However, I am not in favor of his plan to create an across the board reduction of 10%(which is not mentioned in the article but is rumored to be true.) I know I am extremely biased since I work for a Social Serivces department but let me give you this fact that came across my desk a week ago: Since fiscal year 2003-04, the program growth in corrections has increased 74% while social services has only increased 8.9%. So cutting 10% across the board will take social services to the same funding as five years ago.
My old boss from the Department of Public Health was here in Atlanta a couple weeks ago.
She's really concerned about the across the board 10%. The section she heads is already ridiculously understaffed (think 10 empty positions out of about 15) and she's scrambling to fill all the spots so they won't be taken away.
It's not that the spots are dead weight.. it's that morale has been low due to money issues (i.e., the salaries aren't competitive) and retainment has been a huge issue.
It's scary to think that the public health department is understaffed. I may be biased but I think public health is one of those things you just can't skimp on and still maintain a healthy (in all senses of the word) state.
The problem with Public Health in our county (and I am assuming statewide) is the Public Health nurses are scarce and mostly close to retirement age. The reason for the scarcity is just as you mentioned low pay. Why become a PHN when you can get a RN degree and make two to three times that of a PHN?
Also, the stats I gave before also had Health services, which inlcuded Public Health, Mental Health and Developmental Services. Over the same period, Health saw a 45% increase, which was a distant second to Corrections.
What I don't know is which Public Health programs saw the big increase. From my experience your typical Public Health services have been cut while most of the money is being dumped into Bioterrorism and other post 9/11 knee jerk reactions. Don't get me wrong, we need to be prepared for a major crisis, but not at the expense of critical programs.
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