by Laura Conaway

Whatever you make of the current debate on overhauling health care in the U.S., the news out of California today is bracing. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a budget package that closes his state's $26 billion funding gap, but not before making a last round of cuts worth $656 million. From AP:

Schwarzenegger made cuts to child welfare, health care for the poor and AIDS prevention. . . . He called the package "the good, the bad and the ugly."

Schwarzenegger said the cuts were necessary to build up the state's reserve fund after the state Assembly blocked a plan to use local transit funds and drill for oil of Santa Barbara.

Before today's cuts, Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Health Access, called the budget "the biggest rollback of coverage in state budget history," according to the LA Times.