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To clarify, I did not say that they're cutting 40% of the budget but that I think they're trying to cut around 40% of the discretionary budget.
I'm trying to find the current numbers but in 2003, 63% of the budget was mandatory. Meaning that if the state government is functioning it is obligated to spend that much. This includes Prop 98 primary education funding, Medi-Cal, pensions, debt servicing, etc.
The remaining budget is discretionary and this is where almost all budget cuts will have to be made. According to the LA Times the current projected budget shortfall is $24 billion.
The 2003 total discretionary spending was $33.4 billion. So if that number is the same (and I'm guessing it is smaller now since we've already been through a couple budget cuts since then) and they were forced to actually balance the budget entirely through budget cuts (which won't happen since a lot will still come through accounting tricks and revenue adjustments that aren't covered by Prop 13) that would actually require a 72% cut in discretionary spending.
2003 discretionary spending was:
Higher Education (UC and CSU) - $5.3b
Corrections - $5.2b
Health & Social Services - $12.9b
All other discretionary - $10.0b
So, unless political suicide is committed by completely defunding higher education and prisons and absolutely everything else discretionary (and still being a few billion short of balanced), significant cuts are going to have to come out of the Health & Social Services piece of the pie. And I think it is probable that almost every possible cut in that segment will have someone standing behind it saying "cut this and people will die."
That is not to say that I think this particular program is a reasonable target. My gut reaction is that it is not. But like I said above I simply don't have enough knowledge about the entire system to have more than a gut reaction and I suspect that we're in for quite a season of "oh my god, this is the most vile thing Sacramento budgeters have ever tried to do, why do they hate humanity so?" Heck, this thread is already the second one (see also: closing state parks).
(As a side note, notice the "debt servicing" I mentioned as part of the mandatory budget. In 2003 we spent more on interest - $3.8 billion - than on the entire UC system - $2.8b.)
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