Budget crisis in California and who are affected

The budget crisis in California has been the talk of the town lately which is causing a lot of fears and uncertainties among the low paying and or temporary workers who may already be struggling even before we learned about the said crisis.

The battle for a budget in the state of California has heated up. On July 31, Governor Schwarzenegger signed an executive order that called for 200,000 state worker’s pay to be slashed to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour. In addition, 25,000 temporary, return retiree, and student workers were laid off.

In my opinion, this group of people who perhaps have no other means but accept a temporary job are again made to suffer the second time when they get laid off. To take away the people’s only means of livelihood, when at least getting a little paycheck is better than nothing, is really an act of cruelty and can only be done by someone who doesn’t know and understand what it means to lose their future. The temp job is still a job that helps support a family and put food on the table. Why not instead look at the possibility of reducing the salaries of overpaid employees whose salaries does not fit their job or too high salaries that are not even justified. I think they should be the one to take the pay cut. They probably won’t even notice that it.

Think of the poor. Think of how hard it must be to not know where to get the next meal, the next bus fare to get to where there might be a job offer, the money to pay the utilities and how about the children’s welfare. I wonder how the government officials think. I get really upset when the poor are being neglected, ignored and uncared for.
Another example is the lottery. We hear about one person winning $30 millions of dollars. Why don’t they design it in such a way that there will be more winners to share the pot rather than just one or two. If only these people have a soft spot in their hearts for the poor, there will be less people lining up in the unemployment office. There will be more people smiling and crime rate will probably become much less or zero.

Bottom line, this is what they should really be thinking of doing:

Facing a $15 billion budget shortfall, Californian legislators are calling for tax hikes on the rich. That’s despite the Golden State already having one of the most progressive tax structures, meaning the wealthy pay much higher rates than the poorest.

Now, if the situation in California or the US has gone this bad, can you imagine how the people in the 3rd world countries are making it? Let those who care stand up please!