Fallout from the California's longest budget standoff on record is rippling through California, plunging public services into crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.
If there is no spending plan by the end of the month, the state will owe 12 billion dollars to government service providers who bylaw cannot be paid in the absence of a budget, the paper reported.
Because of the budget crisis, care expenses were being cut off for thousands of low-income parents, said the report.
At St. John's Well Child and Family Center, which operates 11 health clinics in South Los Angeles, officials are struggling to absorb patients turned away by smaller providers, according to the paper.
Some Californians have not had the option of staying at their jobs, the report said.
Without agreement over how to close a 15.2-billion-dollar gap in California's 100-billion-dollar-plus general fund, the legislature has failed to enact a budget since the current fiscal year began on July 1, marking the longest such delay in at least 60 years.
A Republican proposal to release emergency funds to service providers was rejected Wednesday by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as fiscally irresponsible. He said it would precipitate a cash crisis, emptying state coffers of billions of dollars at a time when reserves are low and the usual bridge loans can not be accessed because there is no spending plan.
Schwarzenegger has proposed a temporary 1 percent increase in the state sales tax to help meet the shortfall, putting him at odds with members of his own party in the legislature who oppose any tax hike whatsoever.
A state Senate vote last Friday on a Democratic-backed plan similar to Schwarzenegger's fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to pass budget and tax measures.
Source:Xinhua
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