About half of the nation’s governors have released their proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. Children will clearly be the victim of many of these cuts as states are choosing to sacrifice their health, education, and safety. They should expect more leadership from the people elected to shape their future, but yet again, politicians are failing them. Many of those proposals will be changed before they are enacted, but they are indicative of the magnitude of the cuts that children in these states are facing:

• Arizona’s governor is proposing deep cuts to a range of programs and services. If enacted, her budget would: eliminate the state’s children’s health insurance program (KidsCare), which covers 47,000 children; make deep cuts to support for early learning by eliminating preschool for 4,328 children and eliminating state support for full-day kindergarten; and reduce the number of months that low-income families can receive cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, immediately eliminating assistance for 10,000 poor families, among other cuts.
• California’s governor is proposing deep cuts to health care and education beyond those already enacted. Specific cuts include additional deep reductions to Medi-Cal (Medicaid) services, a $1.5 billion reduction in K-12 and community college funding in 2010-11, and elimination of funding to respond to enrollment growth in the state’s public universities.
• Colorado’s governor proposes to eliminate a scheduled increase in K-12 funding that would cover enrollment and cost increases and implement an additional cut of $223 million in school aid. He also proposes delaying payments to Medicaid providers and cutting payment rates.
• Delaware’s governor proposes five days of furlough for teachers.
• Georgia’s governor proposes cuts to education that would reduce K-12 spending by nearly 11 percent from pre-recession levels; state university spending would be reduced by more than 9 percent.
• Maine’s governor is proposing 10 percent cuts in payments to certain Medicaid providers and a further cut in overall K-12 education spending beyond cuts already enacted.
• The Massachusetts budget proposes a $174 million reduction in Medicaid provider rates and eliminates state funding for a program providing housing vouchers to homeless families.
• Mississippi’s governor is proposing to cut state aid to K-12 schools by over 9 percent.
• New York’s governor is proposing a $1.1 billion cut to state education aid; more than $400 million in reduced payments to health care providers and about $100 million in other health-related cuts; $143 million in funding cuts for four-year public colleges and cuts to a financial aid program serving students from low- and moderate-income families.
• South Carolina’s governor is proposing capping total enrollment in the state’s children’s health insurance program.
• Vermont’s Governor recommends a host of spending cuts, primarily focused on human service programs and education, including a 3 percent reduction in Medicaid provider rates, Medicaid premium increases, caps on some Medicaid services like the number of emergency room visits, and an increase of 20 percent in the average number of students per teacher.
• Before leaving office, Virginia’s former governor proposed a budget for the coming biennium that would (in 2011) cap state funding for school support staff and school psychologists.
• Washington’s governor is proposing deep cuts to education and health care. She is proposing: eliminating two education programs, both of which reduce class sizes and one of which provides professional development for teachers; cutting the state work-study program as well as several smaller financial aid programs that help 11,000 students go to college; reduced funding for two- and four-year colleges, likely resulting in administrative cuts, larger class sizes, and elimination of support services such as student advising; and a 20 percent reduction in early interventions and 25 percent reduction in direct client services for HIV and HIV-vulnerable populations.