At last, a list of proposed Republican cuts

During the budget process over the last six months (including the time since the budget has passed where everyone has acknowledged that it was a totally useless attempt at passing a budget) Republican legislators have been saying there should be spending cuts, rather than new taxes. However, they have never come out and released a clear list of cuts that shows how to get the budget balanced. Until now. The full list of $15.6 billion in cuts can be found on Capitol Alert. There would also be $6 billion in cuts in children health and mental health programs, but they would require voter approval since they are in programs that voters have approved to receive a designated amount of funding.

The real meat of the cuts comes in education ($10.6 billion), transit programs ($459 million), and welfare programs ($913 million). The education cuts involve a 10 percent across-the-board reduction for California university programs. There are also Medi-Cal cuts.

It's either that are various Democratic or Gov. Schwarzenegger proposals, which would raise either the sales tax, or income taxes for California's wealthy.

At least now voters have a competing vision for where they would like the state to go. Too bad that few people are paying attention, and most districts are hopelessly gerrymandered.