SACRAMENTO, CA - As Legislators review Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to close a $24 billion state budget deficit with massive cuts to schools, health care for children, home care for seniors and people with disabilities, and other human services, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) launched a statewide television ad today calling for a common sense, balanced approach to solving the state budget crisis.

SACRAMENTO – At a time when deep cuts are being proposed to education, health care, and human services, a new analysis by the California Budget Project (CBP), a nonpartisan public policy research group, finds that corporate tax cuts included in the September 2008 and February 2009 budget agreements will result in a loss of $2 billion a year, and potentially as much as $2.5 billion a year, in tax revenues, an amount equal to nearly a quarter of the income tax dollars currently paid by California corporations. The changes to the state's corporate income tax laws were made without public hearings, and result in very large tax cuts for a few California businesses.

In September 2008, the Legislature passed a spending plan that included $11.4 billion in reductions to nearly all areas of the state budget. In February 2009, the Legislature made an additional $6.8 billion in cuts to 2008-09 spending and passed a budget for 2009-10 that included $8.6 billion in spending reductions. In light of the magnitude of California’s fiscal problems, one might expect that there would be no “winners.” In fact, both the September 2008 and February 2009 budget agreements created some very big winners – a very small number of corporations that will receive tens of millions of dollars per year in tax breaks as a result of changes made to California’s corporate tax laws.