Written by Natalia Toliver
With dollars flowing in from taxpayers, California has a $267.1 billion plan to address the proposals made by Newsom last month which included a $267.8 billion budget. This is one of the largest budgets in California’s state history. With such a surplus and after the past year, the money should be targeted to help rebuild California and bring the state back after the toll Covid-19 took on the state. The plan does embrace Newsom’s “Golden State Stimulus” which will send roughly $500 to every household, as well giving grants to small businesses and payments in unemployment. Much of the other money, on the other hand, is being targeted to bring up new social programs.
With these budgets, lawmakers agreed to spend billions on the homeless. This would include buying hotels and motels to provide housing for the homeless so they can be off the streets. The Legislature proposed spending $8.5 billion in new funding over the next two years and allocating $1 billion over the next four years in funding for cities and counties to address the homeless crisis.
Additionally, The Legislature is advocating for an additional $200 million to help rebuild the public health departments. The goal is to make sure the state is never again unprepared in a public health crisis. The Legislature also wants to set aside another $100 million annually for community health organizations to work on health equity and racial justice issues. This funding was not originally included in Newsom’s plans.
They also want to provide a state-funded safety net for undocumented immigrants. They plan to spend $550 million annually to offer California immigrants food aid that is currently left out of the federally-funded CalFresh Program.
$613 million is planning to be spent to increase access to college. With this money, they plan to boost the current financial aid program, Cal Grant. They want to free up enrollment in three of the most sought-after universities, Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego. Their goal is to free up more spots for California residents. They want to spend an additional $540 million so college students would have to borrow little to nothing for school.
With such a surplus, the money should be fed to rebuild the state, not fund new social programs.
