The Campaign to Save Child Care gathered over 400 protesters in Long Beach yesterday to protest Governor Schwarzenegger's October 8 line-item veto of $256 million in Stage 3 CalWORKS subsidized child care funding for the working poor(along with additional cuts to special education and the time-out program for foster children).
Neon Tommy's John Guenther reported:
Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D-54), at left, spoke in front of the crowd ..."I was shocked and frankly furious that the governor blue penciled something that took us to 100 days to negotiate," said Lowenthal. "80,000 children going to lose their child care. It's bad for kids and bad for our economy."
As reported this morning in the Long Beach Press-Telegram:
While inside Schwarzenegger and the gubernatorial candidates were discussing California's progress over the past eight years and its future, outside about 400 protesters were focused on the immediate past – the governor's veto of state funding for child-care programs.
The Legislature had kept funding intact for the Stage 3 child-care assistance program, which helps low-income families, when it approved the state budget, but Schwarzenegger cut that funding with his line-item veto earlier this month.
Opponents of the veto say that will result in more than 81,000 California children losing childcare on Nov. 1, which ultimately may cost the state more money as more families are forced to go on welfare so that they can stay at home with their children. Some of those opponents, members of Child Care Providers UNITED, were at the Convention Center on Tuesday to send the governor that message.
"This Friday, their funding is over, and who's going to watch these children," said Catherine Scott, a North Long Beach resident who has provided child care for 22 years. "It's not really about our income. It's really about the children and the families that we serve."
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