Arnold Terminates Funding For Child Welfare, AIDS Prevention

Don't-be-economic-girlie-men-Governator-Nazi-Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a revised $85 billion budget Tuesday that he said contained "the good, the bad and the ugly," including additional cuts to child welfare programs, health care for the poor and AIDS prevention efforts.

Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto authority to save an additional $656 million that will let the state restore a reserve fund he said is needed for tough times. Democrats immediately questioned whether he had the authority to make some of the cuts.

The new budget should help the state's cash crisis. It remained unclear, however, how soon the state could stop issuing thousands of IOUs to vendors and contractors.

The governor's vetoes included $80 million from child welfare programs; $61 million from county funding to administer Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid; $52 million from AIDS prevention and treatment; $50 million from Healthy Families, the low-cost health insurance program for poor children; and $6.2 million more from state parks. More

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