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Plan is Partly Good, Partly Bad for California

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Dana Wilkie and Otto Kreisher COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- For the third-straight year, President Bush has proposed eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in federal reimbursements to states to help with the cost of jailing illegal immigrants who commit crimes. California is the top beneficiary of the program.

On the other hand, Bush would increase the U.S. Border Patrol budget to more than $3 billion, a 29 percent increase the administration says would be enough to hire 1,500 additional border agents.

Another $35 million is proposed for the San Diego border fence, and $100 million for an assortment of new border-enforcement technologies.

These are some of the provisions in Bush's spending plan for next year that would affect California directly.

The state would get a total of $479 million in military construction projects and also would benefit from several shipbuilding and aerospace programs included in the budget.

Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base would get the biggest local boost in construction funding, with $170.2 million in proposed work, including $55.5 million for a barracks and dining facility and a headquarters building to support the new Marine Corps Special Operations Force.

Several Los Angeles-based aerospace companies will share in a proposed $877 million funding for the Air Force-run Transformational Communications Satellite program and continued research on a space- based radar.

But the budget confirms the Air Force's plan to stop purchase of the C-17 transport, built at the Boeing plant in Long Beach. The budget plans $2.9 billion to buy the last 12 of the planned 180 transports, and to pay for shutting down the production line, which has employed more than 6,000 workers.

But members of the California congressional delegation and other lawmakers have vowed to keep the C-17 line going.

On immigration enforcement, Bush also proposed spending $410.2 million to add 6,700 detention beds that would hold illegal immigrants while they await deportation.

Under the administration's current "catch and release" policy, law enforcers release illegal immigrants if there are no detention beds for them, handing them an order to appear in court.

Critics say most of the released immigrants never show up for court and instead disappear in the United States.

In calling again for the elimination of federal reimbursement of state costs of jailing criminal illegal immigrants, Bush said it is not a federal responsibility.

Border-state governors -- including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- say Washington should pay these costs because it has failed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across international borders.

"This is a blow to California, which has received 40 percent of the total federal funding allocated for the program in past years," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat. "I will work with my colleagues to again ensure that this important program is preserved."

This year, California must share with other border states about $405 million in State Criminal Alien Assistance Program money, though the state alone will spend far more than that. Each year Bush has tried to eliminate funding, Congress has restored some of it -- putting back $297 million in 2004, $305 million in 2005 and $405 million in the current fiscal year.

Bush's budget plan aims to save billions of dollars by shrinking or eliminating domestic programs, including $36 billion that would be saved in the coming five years by cutting Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly.

"California and San Diego are already hemorrhaging doctors and heath-care providers who provide health-care services under Medicare," said Rep. Susan Davis, a San Diego Democrat. "Under the president's proposed budget, I fear this crisis will only deepen."

Much of the cuts announced Monday are in education and include programs that support the arts, vocational education, parent resources and drug-free schools.

Also hard-hit would be the community development block grants that are so important to cities and counties.

Bush wants to slash $1 billion -- or about one-quarter -- from the grants, which pay for projects such as graffiti removal and senior-center construction in distressed communities.

A proposal to change Department of Homeland Security grants to states, cities and counties could prove beneficial to California.

Right now, half the awards are based on formulas and the other half are up to the department's discretion.

The 2007 budget would put almost all the money -- more than 90 percent of it -- under the department's discretion.

This could mean less of the money would be subject to the so- called "small-state-minimum" formula that can provide small states such as Wyoming more than seven times as many grant dollars per person as California.

Source: Daily Breeze

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