Politics
California food assistance program hits a ‘crisis point’ in keeping up with demand
![California food assistance program hits a ‘crisis point’ in keeping up with demand California food assistance program hits a ‘crisis point’ in keeping up with demand](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/la-photos-1staff-529929-la-me-vons-dawn-dusk-26-als.jpg)
County workplaces answerable for administering month-to-month meals advantages to low-income Californians are understaffed and overwhelmed, resulting in delays in providers because the state stalls a promised enhance in funding for the CalFresh help program.
Households are experiencing longer wait occasions for help resulting from extended employees vacancies and casework backlogs due to underfunding of administrative prices for the state program, mentioned Kari Beuerman, social providers director for Marin County, the place earnings disparities are stark.
The Marin County program maintains a 16%-to-20% employees emptiness price. In the meantime, functions for CalFresh providers there elevated by 70% between 2017 and 2021.
Counties throughout the state have needed to make trade-offs to fill staffing gaps, Beuerman mentioned, with some opting to shut hotlines devoted to fielding questions on help in order that staff can atone for enrollment and eligibility paperwork.
“We’re one of many counties that’s contemplating our choices to cope with the backlog,” she mentioned. “We’re actually loath to go there, however we’ve got to deal with our [staff] emptiness price, a excessive quantity of functions and simply an incapacity to get all of it accomplished. We’re going to must make some powerful choices.”
As of December, 4.6 million individuals in California — practically 12% of the inhabitants — acquired month-to-month meals advantages from CalFresh, the state’s model of the federal Supplemental Diet Help Program.
Earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to extend the CalFresh price range. However the plan was delayed final yr, and once more within the governor’s price range plan launched in January.
The Newsom administration has acknowledged the necessity to enhance the CalFresh funding system, which has not modified in 20 years, however pointed to pandemic disruptions as cause for the delay.
The federal authorities, which funds meals advantages, provides solely half of the administration prices to pay CalFresh employees and preserve workplaces operating. The remainder is funded by the state and particular person counties.
State funding for operational prices covers solely about 60% of what counties want, based on a legislative evaluation.
Anti-poverty advocates have praised Newsom for increasing public help eligibility to extra Californians, however county staff say they will’t sustain with growing demand.
The governor proposed greater than $35 million in January to increase meals advantages to all Californians older than 55 no matter immigration standing, as immigrants missing documentation don’t qualify for CalFresh. Final yr, Newsom signed a regulation extending CalFresh advantages to eligible faculty college students.
“There have been every kind of coverage modifications which have broadened the eligible inhabitants for these advantages, which is great, however the funding has not saved tempo, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to reply in a well timed method to those requests and have ample staffing,” Beuerman mentioned. “We’re struggling.”
The County Welfare Administrators Assn. of California is asking Newsom to provide an additional $60 million in his price range proposal to handle staffing shortages till state officers sort out their broader objective of overhauling the funding system.
In Fresno County, the place 17% of individuals reside in poverty, there are 310 vacancies within the division, amounting to a emptiness price of about 12%.
Linda Du’Chene, the county’s deputy director for social providers, mentioned staff are pressured to prioritize duties associated to CalFresh circumstances over the state’s Medi-Cal program as a result of federal guidelines require that those that are eligible obtain meals inside 30 days and, in some emergency circumstances, inside three days.
“We don’t have a ample sufficient workforce to divide the packages,” she mentioned. “It could imply delays on the healthcare facet, and that’s actually unlucky. It appears like we’ve got to decide on meals over healthcare, and the purchasers want each. It actually does put the county in a dire place.”
Funding for CalFresh has remained static regardless of important modifications within the state price range over time — the system has not modified because the early 2000s, when the state ended cost-of-living changes because it scrambled to make cuts in gentle of a recession. However the state is now flush with money and has a report price range surplus.
The financial toll of the pandemic sparked a report surge in CalFresh functions. In January 2020, a mean of 4.1 million Californians acquired CalFresh advantages. By June 2020, that quantity rose to 4.8 million.
State funding for counties to manage CalFresh advantages amounted to $804 per family in 2000, and now equals $328 per family, based on Division of Social Companies information.
Whereas counties referred to as for extra funding earlier than the pandemic, the so-called Nice Resignation has compounded the issue as individuals reevaluate in-person workplace jobs, making it tougher to rent and preserve staff.
“Professions like social staff and eligibility staff, it’s very, very anxious work in one of the best of occasions, however throughout the pandemic, these jobs have develop into even tougher,” Beuerman mentioned. “We’ve had problem recruiting and retaining employees.”
The County Welfare Administrators Assn. of California estimates that if the state had offered annual inflation changes to its share of administration funding, counties would have acquired an extra $414 million this yr. Mixed with required federal and county matching funds, that might imply a shortfall of greater than $1 billion, which might cowl the salaries of about 6,400 staff, based on the group.
“There actually is a human toll. Our members are saying, ‘I’m not offering the service I wish to as a result of I don’t have the employees,’” mentioned Cathy Senderling-McDonald, government director of the affiliation. “It’s hit the disaster level.”
Senderling-McDonald mentioned it’s comprehensible that the pandemic delayed plans, however that extra funding now could be essential.
Tyler Woods, an analyst with Newsom’s Division of Finance, mentioned at a legislative listening to final week that the Newsom administration is “open to dialogue” about an extra $60 million to bridge the hole now, and plans to revisit an overhaul of the system post-pandemic.
“We acknowledge that there’s a must reevaluate that present [funding] methodology,” Woods mentioned. “The pandemic restricted our skill to go in and reevaluate that.”
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Politics
Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills
![Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/AP24244812299639.jpg)
Black activists at the California assembly threatened a “direct impact” on Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign after state Democratic lawmakers held off on two bills that would have greenlighted slavery reparations.
Last week, the California legislature approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government, and issuing a formal apology for laws and practices that have harmed Black people. But none of those bills would provide widespread direct payments to African Americans. After hours of heated debate and protests on Saturday, state lawmakers left out two bills – Senate Bills 1403 and 1331 – that would have created a fund and an agency to oversee reparation measures.
“The speaker needs to bring the bills up now, now, now. These are their bills. They have their names on the bills. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor,” one Black man, a member of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year on Saturday. “Now listen, they’re gonna see this, and they’re gonna get mad at us. They killing their own bills, and then they’re gonna get mad at us. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor. We don’t care. Bring the G– d— bills up now, now, now.”
“We need to send a message to the governor,” a Black woman who is part of the same group chimed in, according to video shared on X. “The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years.”
“We have the votes,” the man added.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER REACTS TO ‘CRAZY’ BILL THAT WOULD GIVE UNDOCUMENTED FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS MONEY
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, right, talks to members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California about two reparations bills in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
State Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills failed to move forward out of fear that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.
“We’re at the finish line, and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of chattel slavery, to Black Californians and Black Americans, to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleagues to reconsider Saturday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
“We owe it to our ancestors,” Bradford added, according to the Sacramento Bee. “And I think we disappointed them in a way.”
California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblymember Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus pulled the bills, adding the proposals need more work.
“We knew from the very beginning that it was an uphill battle…. And we also knew from the very beginning that it would be a multiyear effort,” Wilson told reporters.
![Black activists demand California lawmakers take up reparations bills](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812327525.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California protest in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
Newsom has not weighed in on most of the bills, but he signed a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation. However, the budget did not specify what proposals the money would be used for, and his administration has signaled its opposition to some of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the bills that passed.
SAN FRANCISCO TO BEGIN ‘EQUITY AUDIT’ OF CONTROVERSIAL STATUES: CONCENTRATION OF ‘WHITE SUPREMACY’
Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is Black, called his bill to issue a formal apology for discrimination “a labor of love.” His uncle was part of a group of Black students who in the 1950s were escorted by federal troops past an angry white mob into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional. The students became known as the “Little Rock Nine.”
![Black reparations activists at California legislature](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812326156.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California demand lawmakers take up a vote on two reparations bill in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be extremely proud for what we are going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said ahead of the vote on the legislation that was passed. “Because that is why they struggled in 1957, so that I’d be able to — and we’d be able to — move forward our people.”
Newsom approved a law in 2020 creating a first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations proposals. New York and Illinois have since followed suit with similar legislation. The California group released a final report last year with more than 100 recommendations for lawmakers.
Newsom signed a law earlier this summer requiring school districts that receive state funding for a career education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The legislation, part of a reparations package backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus, aims to help address gaps in student outcomes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Politics
Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?
![Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president? Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/82a042a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3518x1847+0+252/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F03%2Fad%2F280d56bc423c98543309d3f66721%2Ftrump-capitol-riot-78748.jpg)
By now, two months before the presidential election, we voters ought to have seen a verdict in the federal criminal case against the three-time Republican nominee accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the previous contest. (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.)
But there is no verdict against defendant Donald Trump, U.S. history’s biggest sore loser, thanks to the Supreme Court. Its right-wing super-majority — half of whom were selected by Trump, and two of whom should have recused themselves — dallied for half the year before issuing a surreal ruling in July granting the former president, and all future presidents, broad immunity from criminal liability for official acts, even for purportedly official acts intended to dynamite democracy’s foundation: free and fair elections.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
So much for no person being above the law.
Thanks to special counsel Jack Smith, however, voters at least have a revised indictment against Trump in the Jan. 6 case. On Tuesday a new grand jury charged him with the same four conspiracy and obstruction crimes alleged in last year’s indictment, stripped of supporting material that might run afoul of the Supreme Court’s new tests for what is or isn’t an official act.
It’s far too late for a trial, and hence a verdict, before Nov. 5. And Trump’s team almost certainly will argue all the way back to the high court that Smith’s “superseding indictment” violates the justices’ immunity ruling.
Yet if nothing else, the retooled indictment is a useful refresher for those who’ve forgotten about, or become inured to, Trump’s antidemocratic outrages, the ones that made him the first American president to resist the peaceful transfer of power.
And more than that, the charges are a reminder about just why Trump wants to be president again: to avoid criminal liability and possibly prison. If reelected, he could thwart the rule of law, not uphold it as the oath of office demands. Trump could — would — make the Jan. 6 case go away, along with the separate federal charges against him for keeping classified documents. While he’s at it, he has promised to pardon hundreds of charged and convicted Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whom he grossly calls government “hostages.” He could also pardon himself, of course, for his alleged federal crimes (but not state charges).
After the grand jury action last week, former Justice Department official and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann helpfully tweeted, “For those counting, FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”
Yes, for all of Trump’s daily lies that he’s being railroaded by “the Biden-Harris Regime” and its “weaponized” Justice Department, the facts are that many average Americans have heard evidence and decided against Trump. They’ve done so not only in those five grand juries, but also in several state trial juries that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star from voters before the 2016 election.
With that last judgment, Trump achieved another contemptible first: No other president has been convicted of felonies. Sentencing in the hush money case, in New York, was delayed until Sept. 18, thanks to the confusion spawned by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and Trump has asked for a further delay — past election day, natch. Judge Juan M. Merchan should proceed with the sentencing. Sure, Trump would cry foul. But all we’ve seen to date is excessive legal deference toward the lawless former president, his incessant whining about witch hunts notwithstanding.
Which brings us back to Smith’s overhauled Jan. 6 indictment, and its welcome reminder of Trump’s unprecedented power grab. The 36 pages are a maddening must-read for undecided voters, a ticktock of his falsehoods and scheming from the 2020 election through the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet nearly four years later, instead of being held responsible, Trump is a candidate for reelection.
Smith strained to steer clear of Trump’s supposedly official acts, in keeping with the Supreme Court’s warped ruling. Out, for example, are accounts of his vile efforts to force Justice Department aides to lie about election fraud, as a pretext for lawsuits; they were his executive branch employees. But campaign advisors should be fair game for the prosecutors, and the indictment still recounts Trump’s refusals to accept their assertions and proof that he’d lost, that there was no fraud. Trump instead kept his aides spreading lies — “conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership,” one wrote in an email cited in the indictment — and working on illegal slates of alternative state electors.
The document retains some details of Trump’s belittling pressure on Vice President Mike Pence. “You’re too honest,” the liar in chief once erupted, exasperated that Pence wouldn’t agree to throw out the electoral votes of pro-Biden battleground states during Congress’ Jan. 6 certification. And it includes Trump’s private and public haranguing of state officials to do his illegal bidding; they’re not feds, and presidents have no official role in states’ vote-counting.
Alas, for now all we have, still, are the charges, no trial and no verdict. But that fact defines the stakes for the 2024 election: A vote for Trump is a vote against his accountability. It’s really that simple.
@jackiekcalmes
Politics
Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery
![Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/kamala-graves-arlington-1.jpg)
Vice President Kamala Harris was recently excoriated by Gold Star family members who accused the Democratic presidential candidate of politicizing an incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.
The messages were posted on former President Trump’s Instagram account. Eight videos, each featuring different parents of service members killed by ISIS-K terrorists amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021, were published in total.
The videos were released in the wake of a statement published by Harris on Saturday, where the vice president criticized Trump for taking photographs at a wreath-laying ceremony event on Monday. The Army said this week that an Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” while interacting with Trump’s staff.
“As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times,” Harris said. “It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff.”
TRUMP IMPERSONATES ELON MUSK TALKING ABOUT ROCKETS: ‘I’M DOING A NEW STAINLESS STEEL HUB’
Kamala Harris was called out by Gold Star families over a statement she released about Trump on Saturday. (Getty Images)
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” she claimed, before adding that she would “never politicize” such an event.
The Gold Star family members maintained that they had asked Trump for photographs, as opposed to Trump taking pictures to advance his campaign. In one video, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz called Harris’ post “heinous, vile and disgusting.”
“Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” Mark Schmitz said in the video. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”
Darren Hoover, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, said that Harris lacks “empathy and basic understanding” about Monday’s event, and stressed that Trump’s appearance was respectful.
HARRIS SLAMS TRUMP OVER ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY ALTERCATION, PROMPTING FIERY RESPONSE FROM JD VANCE
![Trump Harris split image](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Copy-of-Side-by-Side-split-9.png?ve=1&tl=1)
Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump over last week’s incident at Arlington National Cemetery. (Getty Images)
“In keeping with the reverence and respect that is given to all members of our military that are buried there, we invited President Trump,” he said. “We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
Hoover also added that Trump has “been there for us from the very beginning,” and criticized Harris for “playing politics” over the incident.
“You should be ashamed and embarrassed [about] your lack of empathy and decency as a human being,” the father added. “You are only in this for the power and prestige. You don’t care for our military or the citizens of this country.
![Trump at Arizona rally](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/AP24237043125176.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“You should hang your head in shame at your actions or lack thereof.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
-
Connecticut1 week ago
Oxford church provides sanctuary during Sunday's damaging storm
-
News1 week ago
Who Are Kamala Harris’s 1.5 Million New Donors?
-
Politics1 week ago
2024 showdown: What happens next in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump face-off
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump taunted over speculated RFK Jr endorsement: 'Weird as hell'
-
Politics1 week ago
House GOP demands elite universities counteract 'dangerous' anti-Israel protests in the fall semester
-
Politics1 week ago
Vivek Ramaswamy sounds off on potential RFK Jr. role in a Trump administration
-
World6 days ago
Portugal coast hit by 5.3 magnitude earthquake
-
News1 week ago
Video: Kamala Harris’s Political Pragmatism