State Budget’s Effect on Young, Poor and Sick

Re “Burton Calls Budget Plan ‘Unworthy,’ ” Jan. 13: State Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) calls the governor’s recent budget submission “unworthy” because of cuts (to projected spending) affecting the poor and the young. However, a table in The Times (Jan. 10) showed that the budget calls for increases of 6% in K-14 education and 8% in health and human services. The biggest decreases, percentagewise, were in business, transportation and housing; labor and workforce development; the environment; and general government.

It sounds as though Burton is cranking up the “Sacramento-speak” partisan politics that created the budget logjam in the first place. Get with it, senator; the people want to see progress on the budget.

Kimbrough S. Bassett

Palos Verdes Estates

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Our poor governor seems confused: He thinks that disabled and sick people are themselves a “special-interest” group. If wheelchairs and home services get the ax, the independent living movement by disabled people is over. What began in California can end here too. I hope our citizens will find this as dreadful a prospect as I do. The governor’s policies will put us back into nursing homes -- which will also close, due to the budget. This is an offense to good sense and human decency.

Cheryl A. Davis

Palo Alto