Sacramento – California lawmakers began to be brave last week due to the harsh reality that the nation might face as President Trump and the Republican-led Congress take steps to cut federal budgets and labor force, and what? They cut off the idea of ​​saying it would threaten the health and well-being of millions of residents. state.

“If Republican administrations and Congress track federal budgets that include these cuts for large corporate tax credit payments that promise billionaires donors, California will be hurt and the national economy will suffer.” and assembly member Greg Hart (D-Santa Barbara). “Frankly, there’s no state income needed to fill in lost federal funds.”

Hart made comments at the end of the two-hour Congressional Budget Subcommittee hearing held Thursday to assess the very real threat of California’s federal money cuts. Roads, food aid for those in need, and other important government services. According to the California Budget and Policy Center, The federal fund accounts for about a third of the state’s total budget.

How to destroy these cuts is not possible as budget proposals were caught up in through Republican Congress and federal courts sifted through legal challenges against Trump’s attempts to chainsaw federal agencies. It remains clear.

Democrats who control both rooms in the California Legislature did not write words about the impact.

“I’ve heard the words “challenging, difficult, uncomfortable choices, harmful choices that California has to make,” said Rep. Patrick Aherns of Sunnyvale. “I disagree with them. I think the words we should use are devastating, immoral, cruel, sick, devastating, immeasurable.”

Republican Rep. Heather Hadwick, who represents a large rural territory on the corner of northeastern California, is the most important thing in light of potential federal cuts that California lawmakers are financially responsible for. He told a Democrat colleague that he focused on maintaining. program.

“I want to maintain a program that protects our vulnerable citizens. I was raised by a single mother. I grew up with those programs, but I want them to be a stepping stone, not a lifestyle. ” said Hadwick. “I represent 11 counties that can’t manage this scale of cuts financially, and they want to see our government reduce waste and be more transparent.”

This is Phil Willin, California political editor at The Times, who will face columnist George Skeleton this week. How California deals with federal budget cuts will affect the daily lives of millions of Californians over the course of months and years. Visit Latimes.com early and frequently to get the latest updates from Sacramento and Washington.

What is in danger?

For California’s budget year, California expects to receive more than $170 billion in federal funds, of which $134 billion is the state’s health and welfare program (mainly Medicaid version of Medicaid). It will be Medi-Cal, Anne Hollingshead from List. The office told lawmakers. Republican leaders in Congress are looking to cut Medicaid billions as they are trying to cut federal spending.

Approximately 15 million Californians (one third of the state) are in Medi-Cal, with some of the highest proportions in rural counties that supported Trump in the November election. More than half of California children receive medical compensation through Medi-Cal.

California public schools are expected to receive $8 billion in federal funds from kindergarten through kindergarten-12 education, primarily for school lunches, poor school districts and students with disabilities. California was also expected to receive more than $7 billion for higher education.

The federal fund accounts for more than a third of Cartran’s $17.6 billion budget, and the cuts will affect the ability of local governments to build and maintain roads and other projects. Approximately $2.5 billion is funded for other state and local programs, most of which are for disaster response and recovery, and about $2.4 billion is for environmental programs and natural resources. finance.

How can California respond?

Hart, who chairs the Budget Subcommittee on Accountability and Surveillance, began the hearing, noting that California is a “donor” state. That means sending $800 billion more taxes to the federal government.

“Now we are facing a very realistic threat to Draconia federal spending cuts that disproportionately hurt California,” Hart said.

Rep. Rhodesia Random (D-Stockton) said that, given that the state’s most vulnerable ones are under attack by the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress, the state has given California taxes sent to Washington anyway. If there’s anything to withhold.

But Carolyn Chew, from the legal analyst firm, absorbed the idea by saying that money from California to Washington is paid by individuals and businesses. If taxpayers withhold payments in some sort of collective action in protest, they will face penalties from the federal government.

Therefore, California lawmakers will face some difficult decisions over the coming months. They can find ways to cut down essential programs or generate new revenue to compensate for lost federal funds.

“The deep cuts to Medicaid are especially worrying because they do. Makes state budget unstablesaid Scott Graves of the California Budget and Policy Center. “New costs from federal to state governments could shift from $10 billion to more than $20 billion, which could be in some way by states to maintain the entire Medi-Cal program. It needs to be absorbed in.

One way to help meet that shortfall is to scrutinize some of the $100 billion tax credits currently permitted in the state, he said.

“Options include ensuring that profitable companies that benefit from large tax cuts at the federal level pay fair shares in their taxes here in California,” Graves said. Ta.

But Joe Patterson, a Republican Congressman for Rockin, said many of these tax credits would be to blame for poor Californians, including a proposal 13 limit on property tax hikes, student loan interest deductions, and low-income workers’ earning income tax credits. It reminded the committee to support it.

“So, tax expenditures that governments are taking for tax credits may be that Californians are working, maybe they need help elsewhere, maybe… homeowners are they They may be trying to buy a house, maybe they are older, Patterson said.

What else should I read?

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