HHS Network Issues Response to Legislative Republican Budget Demands
June 13, 2011: Nancy Berlin, executive director of California Partnership, issued the following statement on behalf of the Health and Human Services Network of California in response to the June 13 statement from Legislative Republican leaders:
“As the clock winds down on the voter-mandated deadline to reach a budget deal, the Legislative Republicans have again failed to bring any reasonable solutions to the table. Instead, they returned to the Governor with their tired list including a punitive spending cap that will create an era of permanent cuts and lock-in low level funding for health care and human service programs indefinitely. This, in turn, will inhibit health care and human services program from meeting the needs of a growing and aging population.
Time and again, Legislative Republicans have sought to use cheap budget tricks and cruel budget cuts to balance the budget on the backs of poor children and vulnerable seniors. While Governor Brown attempted to close the budget with an equal mix of modest revenues and steep cuts, Republicans are holding up a budget deal with nothing more than inflammatory and out-of-control ideology, not common-sense.
California’s families need a budget that helps them recover from this economic meltdown, They deserve better than this.”
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About the HHS Network of California:
We are a network of advocates, consumers, and allies working together for strong health care and human services in California. We are statewide, diverse, and grassroots. Our network includes people who care about health care, home care for seniors and disabled people, emergency food and food stamps, domestic violence shelters, independent living centers for people with disabilities, child abuse and neglect prevention, women’s health care, community health clinics, AIDS prevention and care, and more — in other words, the basic human needs we all share.
Convening groups for the network include the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Health Access, California Partnership, and California Immigrant Policy Center.
