The fight of our lives

12-16-2010

By Robert Cruickshank/California Progress Report

At Tuesday's education budget meeting in Los Angeles, educators from across the state took to the microphone to tell Governor-elect Jerry Brown that schools cannot accept more funding cuts without the system collapsing. And Brown, along with Treasurer Bill Lockyer and other state officials, explained that while they understood full well that California's schools have already been cut to the bone and are funded worse than in almost every other state, there's not going to be any avoiding those cuts - unless new revenues are approved. I've written before about the California Impasse - the desire of voters for better public services, their openness to new taxes to fund those services, and their hesitation to actually pull the trigger, at least statewide. As was pointed out several times at the event, majorities of voters have shown willingness to tax themselves for schools, but the 2/3rds rule for parcel taxes has blocked these from being successful. Jerry Brown pointed out that voters statewide aren't yet willing to accept new taxes for programs, and we saw that during the November 2010 election. Yet he also noted that California is an extremely wealthy state, the 8th largest economy in the world, with a GDP of over $1 trillion. Closing a $28 billion gap with new revenues, just 2.8% of that GDP, should not be a problem.* (more…)

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