'What's Wrong with this Picture?'

Editor:

There is something that Californians can do besides wring our hands about the passage of HR1, the “Big Ugly Bill” (“Huffman: Senate Budget Bill a ‘Betrayal,'” July 3).

We are a “donor” state. In fact, California’s donation is by far the largest in the nation, providing about $83 billion more to the federal government than it receives (The Rockefeller Institute of Government and CalMatters).

Yet, we are worried about losing funds for Medical, food and other benefits that are badly needed by our middle class and working poor residents. These are the people who do the work, keep the economy going, and make it possible for California to be a donor state.

Our food banks are concerned that federal funding cuts will deprive Californians of food.

But, is not California the food bank of the nation?

The value of California’s agricultural crops is the largest in the US, with an overall crop value of more than $33 billion (USDA).

We can feed the rest of the country, but we cannot feed our own people? What’s wrong with this picture?

It would seem fair that this state should be able to withhold some of the money it pays to the federal government, to offset the cutbacks that are hurting our people.

A polite letter to the White House explaining our logic might not be well received, but nothing about California, except money, is well received by the current administration.

California serves simultaneously as the nation’s whipping boy and its ATM.

Will we allow the federal government to raid our state? If the current trend of defunding continues, California will be stripped of assets and discarded when the last of our natural resources and money have been extracted. And it will be our fault for letting it happen.

Frances K. Ransley, Eureka