In an attempt to reduce California's huge deficit, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed two budget plans to lawmakers. The L.A. Times reports that both budgets choices include sever cuts that would result in reducing the public school year by seven days, "releasing thousands of inmates from prison and packing others into county jails, cutting off healthcare to more than 200,000 children and drilling for oil off the Santa Barbara coast."
Here in Pixeltown, we really do believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. And pictures of places that would be lost in an attempt to reduce the deficit, are literary worth billions of dollars.
(Picture of beautiful Santa Barbara with Oil Rigs by Flickr user Willem van Bergen using a Creative Commons License.)
What could happen to this beautiful beach view if more drilling is allowed? What are the environmental consequences?
Silicon Valley's Mercury News writes
Thousands of low-level criminals would get out of prison early. Funding for public schools would drop by billions of dollars. Strapped local governments would see their coffers raided once again. And programs that aid the poor, aged and disabled would be slashed.
Cuts to programs to for the functionally impaired would mean a 40.8 million cut from IHSS ( In-Home Supportive Services) a service which benefits those over 65, disabled, or blind.
Not only would the K-12 public school system have their budget cut, but the UC and CSU system would lose 1.020 billion in funding in the current year only, which would include cuts to my own school, University of California, Irvine (Zot Zot!).
(Pic of UCI by Flickr user stevendamron using a Creative Commons License)
It has been proposed that the State would also have to sell some of its public land, which would mean the L.A. Coliseum and the San Quentin State Prison.
Pic by Flickr user scpgt using a Creative Commons License
"I understand that these cuts are very painful," said the Governor Schwarzenegger, and indeed, they will be.
On a lighter note, a picture of Oil-Change Man has been found! He is actually a Muffler Man...
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I like the article it short but it discusses an important topic.