Like a shot fired over the proverbial bow, President Barack Obama presented his fiscal 2013 federal budget Monday, complete with a plan to hack $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade.
Certain to be a political hot potato for the June primary and the November general election, the plan looks to achieve $1.5 trillion in cuts through tax increases on the wealthy and closing corporate tax loopholes.
He’s already preemptively attempted to dismiss the class warfare argument, saying, “This is not about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare.”
Considering this will be the kind of thing that becomes a partisan focal point in the coming months, what you see now will be much different from what comes to pass.
Still, there are things in the proposed budget of which Californians, and particularly Imperial County residents, need to take heed.
Among the most costly for California will be a massive planned reduction in the state Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Currently, the feds provide $240 million a year to California to assist the state prison system and the county jails in housing locked up illegal immigrants. Even that is a pittance when California and its counties are spending something like $1 billion a year to jail undocumented immigrants. Obama’s budget looks to reduce that amount from $240 million to $70 million.
Such news comes hot on the heels of the beginning of the move to shift lower-level state inmates to county jails. So, the impact to the counties will be far worse than to the state prisons.
California could be hit hard in many ways with this budget, on top of an already austere existence coming from Sacramento.
Like we said earlier, the end product of this budget is far from reality. But there is some positive, as the Obama administration hopes to provide another infusion of cash — to the tune of $8 billion — to community colleges all over the country to train students for what he hailed as the jobs of the future.
With Imperial Valley College continuing to suffer mightily under the state budget ax, this is welcome news in whatever form.
We’ll hear much more about this federal budget, and most of it will likely be delivered with highly divisive rhetoric. For now, though, we can only imagine how it truly will affect all of us, and not just its effect on an election.
THE ISSUE:
Obama releases 2013 federal budget plan.
WE SAY:
Budget a political hot potato, but worth paying attention to for Californians.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
Send us your thoughts on this topic to www.ivpressonline.com/letterstotheeditor
Certain to be a political hot potato for the June primary and the November general election, the plan looks to achieve $1.5 trillion in cuts through tax increases on the wealthy and closing corporate tax loopholes.
He’s already preemptively attempted to dismiss the class warfare argument, saying, “This is not about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare.”
Considering this will be the kind of thing that becomes a partisan focal point in the coming months, what you see now will be much different from what comes to pass.
Still, there are things in the proposed budget of which Californians, and particularly Imperial County residents, need to take heed.
Among the most costly for California will be a massive planned reduction in the state Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Currently, the feds provide $240 million a year to California to assist the state prison system and the county jails in housing locked up illegal immigrants. Even that is a pittance when California and its counties are spending something like $1 billion a year to jail undocumented immigrants. Obama’s budget looks to reduce that amount from $240 million to $70 million.
Such news comes hot on the heels of the beginning of the move to shift lower-level state inmates to county jails. So, the impact to the counties will be far worse than to the state prisons.
California could be hit hard in many ways with this budget, on top of an already austere existence coming from Sacramento.
Like we said earlier, the end product of this budget is far from reality. But there is some positive, as the Obama administration hopes to provide another infusion of cash — to the tune of $8 billion — to community colleges all over the country to train students for what he hailed as the jobs of the future.
With Imperial Valley College continuing to suffer mightily under the state budget ax, this is welcome news in whatever form.
We’ll hear much more about this federal budget, and most of it will likely be delivered with highly divisive rhetoric. For now, though, we can only imagine how it truly will affect all of us, and not just its effect on an election.
THE ISSUE:
Obama releases 2013 federal budget plan.
WE SAY:
Budget a political hot potato, but worth paying attention to for Californians.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
Send us your thoughts on this topic to www.ivpressonline.com/letterstotheeditor
