The governor announced an all-cuts budget on Dec. 9 (geared toward making the case for a tax increase) which would eliminate the following: Basic Health, which provides affordable health insurance to 65,000 people; General Assistance for the Unemployable, which provides help to people who are unable to work because of disability; Health insurance coverage for 16,000 lower income children; Benefits for Medicaid clients; State support for all-day kindergarten in high-poverty areas; Class size reduction efforts; a program that equalizes school funding between wealthy and poor school districts; and Tuition assistance for over 12,000 lower-income students. “Today’s all-cuts budget will hit Washington’s immigrant families particularly hard,” says Pramila Jayapal, executive director of OneAmerica. “Washington’s immigrant and minority families are already suffering some of the most severe consequences of the recession. With less access to credit, lower rates of home ownership, historically higher rates of unemployment, and fewer assets, many immigrant families were already in a precarious position before the recession, but they have now found themselves at rock bottom without a ladder to climb out…This budget contains no blueprint for the future, no plan for hope, and no promise of a Washington State where we would want to live,” says Jayapal.
