"Cuts to hit L.A. hard"

Apparently it's NYT Old Skool day (*) over at the Daily News: "Cuts to hit L.A. hard: Cops, women's programs slashed". Despite the title it's of interest:

President George W. Bush's lean $2.57 trillion budget plan to beef up the U.S. military comes at the expense of Southern California's ability to hire more cops, help battered women and clean its drinking water.

The proposed 2006 budget slashes programs considered vital by local officials, including Los Angeles' Community Oriented Policing program, used to hire more police, and community block grants that fund low-income housing and other social services...

Bush also slashed the COPS program, which provides grants for state and local agencies to hire police officers, from $499 million to $22 million...

And, as expected, the budget offers no money for a federal program that reimburses state and local governments for the cost of jailing criminal illegal aliens. That burden costs Los Angeles County $80 million to $100 million annually, officials say.

While wildfire protection funding through Bush's Healthy Forest initiative increased $56 million, a tree assistance program that has provided help to Southern California was zeroed out, and no funding was requested for Southern California earthquake assistance...

Los_Angeles · Tue, 02/08/2005 - 10:05 · · Importance: 1