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Brown’s tax plan faltering

October 25, 2012

Gov. Jerry Brown

With polls showing support slipping for Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax measure, Prop. 30, the state’s chief executive yesterday raised the threat of a $6 billion cut to California education in the event voters reject the temporary tax increases. (Ventura Star)

“There’s no more money sitting around,” Brown told reporters.

The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California this week had support for the measure at 48 percent compared to 44 percent opposition, a virtual tie.

It was the first time any poll has shown backing for the increase decline below 50 percent.

An earlier agreement between Brown and lawmakers would keep school spending at its current level only if Prop. 30 passes. Otherwise, built-in budget cuts would trigger, costing K-12 education more than $5.5 million, and public colleges and universities another $500 million.

Brown called the trigger “on or off” depending entirely on voters’ decision on the tax measure.

The proposal would levy a seven-year tax increase for couples earning $500,000 or more, and a one-quarter percent hike in the state sales tax for a four-year period. According to the governor, that would amount to one penny on the purchase of a four-dollar sandwich.


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Every year there is school bond on the ballot and they almost. Always pass! Were dose the money go?


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It goes to one of two places: somewhere hidden away in accounts not visible to the public. Or, it is squandered.


Either way, government can’t calculate. Not that they care. After all, it’s other people’s money. Why should they care about OPM?


Since they have monopoly privileges granted by government and the state constitution, they don’t have to care. They just have to be good at PR and keep right on spending.


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Please note that even Jerry Brown cannot get the Democratic legislature to do their job of cutting spending. We have legislators that are not loyal to the state of California, but are only loyal to themselves and their special interests. They come to the legislature to get money from the state as if it was an ATM machine. Brown asked for a certain level of cuts from the legislature, and didn’t get it.


John Perez, Speaker of the Assembly, who posed as a UC Berkeley graduate until he was exposed as a drop out, was a labor leader with a questionable background and has pushed through special legislation for his corporate donors ( http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/28/local/la-me-perez28-2010feb28 ). He told the LGBT caucus that he was there to push rights for this group as well as illegal immigrants, two groups that he says are “vulnerable during economic downturns”. He has championed all the welfare programs of California, resisting any cuts.


So, in light of California’s economic plight, the Speaker of the House is acting as a block against cuts to unions, pensions, and “his” corporations. He is supportive of more rights for gays and illegal immigrants, and more money for recipients of state subsidy programs.


This is only one example of how someone is more supportive of their special interests than the ultimate well being of the state of California. No wonder spending cuts can’t be made, and the economy /jobs takes a back seat. The state of California could go bankrupt and the only reason he would care would be if his special union and welfare constituents didn’t get their checks from the state.


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Government itself IS a special interest.


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Poor Jerry. And I thought he ran for govenor to cut spending. Well, then cut spending! Gee, is that so hard.

I agree with Robert1 – cut out all the money that goes for illegal immigrants – something over $15 Billion.


And show some common sense with all of the excessive, bloated positions in both CSA and U of CA systems. Chancellors, vice chancellors, presidents, vice presidents and god only knows how many other

positions getting several hundred thousand dollars yearly – for what?


Unfortunately, the cuts that will happen when Prop 30 fails, will not be to the upper fat-cats. It will be to the students, elementary thru high school. College students will have to pay higher tuition. But that may just be the price that has to be paid for somebody, somewhere, and somehow begin to realize that more money is not the answer. This state needs to wake up and do it different.


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Great post. No matter how much money you give to schools, the school administration gets their hands on it before anyone else. School administrators then get to slice the pie as they seem fit. Never any cuts to the admin; only teachers get cut. It’s a school; administrators don’t teach, but they have many assistants and 6-figured salaries. Administrators don’t care if teachers are fired. If you want to puke, take a look at the org chart of the cal poly administration.


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“College students will have to pay higher tuition”?


No, they won’t. They can go to school somewhere else. The free market has more and more alternatives coming up every day.


They need to stop patronizing these public universities and get their education somewhere else!


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As someone else posted, “starve the beast”, it will die, even the democrats will come around when their children are effected.


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“Starve the beast” may be the only answer left. But the problem with this solution is that is will cause a whole lot of headaches, problems, and difficulties for many, mostly un-deserving, people.

Children, older people, etc. That is very unfortunate.


If a majority of California residents stick together and vote down every tax increase put on any ballot, sooner (hopefully not too much later) someone in Sacramento will have to take notice. But given the money hungry don’t give a damn attitude there, this might take several years.


Do we, as a group, have the guts to stick it out and suffer through until some major changes are made in how this state spends money? Bloated salaries for un-necessary administrators and millions spent on illegal immigrants can not be tolerated.


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We could get rid of the dean at Cal poly and save a bundle? I ám sure there’s many more that are way over paid!


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It seems like Californians are waking up to the power of NO!


It’s a beautiful thing.


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Lower all State Retirements back down to 50% of salary at age 50 or 55….

They’d still have plenty of $$$$ for retirement. spending and vactations…!!!


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Vote against the unions and all tax increases and all bonds, give them nothing.


The state of California employees over 19 MILLION workers, 15% of the national total and 6 times as many workers as the FEDERAL government.


http://www.statebudgetcrisis.org/wpcms/wp-content/images/California-Report-Complete-Version.pdf


How about raising the age to what all the rest of us work until??

Lower nothing but the wages and benefits, cars, cell phones etc.

There is so much fat in the system, this is only the beginning of the necessary cuts.


No more cell phones for 48,000 California workers http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/11/news/economy/brown_cell_phones_california/index.htm


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As long as the cuts extend to special favors for corporations and other influential individuals and organizations, I could live with that.


By the way, California has about 12% of the nation’s population so the number of state employees is not way out of line if your figures are correct. There is substantial question about your numbers though since the federal employee level was over 21 million in 2010 and the number of direct state employees was about 341,000. This does not include local government employees many of whom are paid with state funding so employees paid by the state is likely significantly higher but nowhere near 19 million.


Our problems are more due to a top-heavy bureaucracy and overly-generous benefits for many (not all) of those employees.


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How much would we save if we got rid of the high speed train project? How many teachers, firemen, police etc. could we hire?


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Quit with the common sense, would you.


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Get rid of the high speed train project; scratch the others.


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