President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments (which would include funding for IHSS), saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

Without this money, California in general and the IHSS program in particular will be severaly hurt. State costs for IHSS will increase in the 2010-2011 state budget from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion. This will make our efforts to prevent cuts in the IHSS program even more difficult.

That’s why it is so important for you to contact Senators Feinstein and Boxer today and urge them to include the emergency aid in the jobs bill.

Here’s a link to the Washington Post story on the President’s action: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/12/AR2010061204152.html