Discouraging News for our future leaders!

What will it take for our state to get its act together? Stemming from the budget crisis and how it already hampered many after school programs and threatened to send many lower income families phoning their local legislators, the Governor is on attack once again. What happened to those days, when Schwarzenegger was campaigning on college campuses promising to lower tuition and help our inner city youth achieve a higher education? Today, just as some speculated during these tours, were False Promises. I dare to ask, How did we get in this mess anyway? Do our politicians have the general public's best interest at heart, or are they on a selfish pursuit to make a name for themselves and their families while climbing the political ladder? It is sad to say that the general public has no say in this, even if we head to the polls, solely because our pocketbooks and wallets don't have enough strength to stand and voice an opinion. Gone are the days when our leaders made an impact in our communities, so what should an aspiring politician look too? Corruption, Greed...I have no words of advice but our current gov. system has definitely left me scared and deterred from rising up and being that influential leader in our community.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger outlined a stark vision of a California that would sharply limit aid to some of its poorest and neediest citizens.His $83.4-billion plan would also freeze funding for local schools, further cut state workers' pay and take away 60% of state money for local mental health programs. State parks and higher education are among the few areas the governor's proposal would spare.The proposal, which would not raise taxes, also relies on $3.4 billion in help from Washington — roughly half of what the governor sought earlier this year — to help close a budget gap now estimated at $19.1 billion. Billions more would be saved through accounting moves and fund shifts.

Elimination of CalWorks, the state's main welfare program, would affect 1.3 million people, including about 1 million children. The program, which requires recipients to eventually have jobs, gives families an average $500 a month. Ending those payments would save the state $1.6 billion, the administration said. It would also make California the only state not to offer a welfare-to-work program for low-income families with children.Lawmakers rejected previous attempts by the governor to eliminate the program.Families would also lose state-subsidized day care under the governor's proposal; about 142,000 low-income children would be affected. That would save the state $1.2 billion. Preschool and after-school care would remain in place, as would some federally subsidized day care.Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal is a starting point for negotiations that typically stretch well into the summer. His previous attempts to eliminate landmark state services have been upended by lawmakers who nevertheless agreed to substantial cuts last year. Their alternatives are limited, however; their tens of billions of dollars in temporary tax hikes and program cuts in recent years failed to end the state's chronic budget problems.

The governor blamed legislative inaction for the deep wound to state services. He said if controls on state spending that he has long sought were in place, the budget gap would be much smaller. He also accused the Legislature of failing to move quickly to rein in spending after he called an emergency session of the Assembly and Senate in January for that purpose.The Democrats who control the Legislature noted that Schwarzenegger vetoed measures they approved earlier this year to address a piece of the deficit. Voters twice rejected the spending controls the governor seeks.Democratic leaders immediately vowed to reject the governor's plans and craft alternatives, which they said could include new taxes on oil companies as well as the abolition of some corporate tax breaks.