One of the most important decisions Californians will have to make this November is whether or not to pass Governor Brown’s Proposition 30. The current proposed budget shows “trigger cuts” of $6 billion dollars in the State’s general fund and this will severely impact not just every level of education, but also all departments that fall under the banner of public safety; city police, CalFire, flood control programs, water safety, Dept of Fish and Game, Parks and Recreation and Department of Justice . Since 1978 with the passing of Proposition 13, which significantly reduced the State’s ability to receive revenue from property taxes, the discrepancy between State revenue and State expenditure has been on a steady increase. Proposition 30 is Governor Browns attempt at maintaining funding education and public safety by increasing income tax by 1% to 3%, depending on income level for California’s wealthiest individuals earning more than $250,000 or couples earning more than $500,000 for a period of 7 years. Sales tax will also be increased by ¼ percent for a period of 4 years. Proposition 30 is a short term solution and it will go a very long way to getting California back on its feet, in order for a long term viable solution to be found.
More and more college students in California are concerned with whether they will be able to complete their degrees if the price of college continues to rise. According to the California Federation of Teachers who are proponents of Proposition 30, “State budget cuts to public education funding, totaling $20 billion over the past four years, have taken a terrible toll on our ability to deliver the education our students need and deserve”. With these huge budget cuts the price of higher education has necessarily risen and this has created an unexpected additional cost burden on students hoping to complete their education. These budget cuts have also severely impacted K-12 education by cramming more children into classrooms, cutting teachers and programs such as after-school and the arts. Considering this fact it would be prudent for education not to take another blow. Proposition 30 is set to restore much of that funding and get California back on an upward trajectory.
Critics of the Bill say that there is no evidence that the money raised with Proposition 30 will ever make it to education, however the Official Title and Summary of Proposition 30 prepared by the Attorney General states very clearly that “the new revenues would be deposited into a newly created state account called the Education Protection Account (EPA). Of the funds in the account 89 percent would be provided to schools and 11 percent to community colleges.” Considering that this Official Title and Summary is a legal document, the people of California can feel at ease that this money will be going into the account mentioned and funds spent for education.
Another argument raised by critics is that the Bill is unfair in that it requires only the rich to have an increase in their Income Tax. When we ask the question, who should pay the largest share of the bill, let us consider that one reason the top 1% of wage earners in the State should pay more is that they have succeeded in an environment that was conducive to business success. The State they succeeded in, the roads, the communication system, the legal system and even the education system that educated the employees that worked for the firms they benefited from was set up by a previous generation of taxpayers and they cannot just benefit without giving back. One can even argue that a portion of the 1% were educated by the efforts of that previous generation of taxpayers that set up the education system they enjoyed in the first place. It seems perfectly legitimate that those who have benefited the most put back a little more in order to help the future generations’ ability to keep California on the upward trend it has been on for many years.
While we argue about who needs to pay this bill to educate our young people, California is back sliding steadily from not only being a world leader in higher public education but also in technical and environmental issue innovation. A study by the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent and non partisan group have found that “California faces a shortage of almost a million college-educated workers by 2025.” They equate this problem to two reasons; one is “the retirement of the large and relatively well-educated baby-boom cohort” and the second reason is the State‘s “demographic shifts toward groups that have historically low rates of college attendance and graduation”. This grave statistic tells us that there is a great need to address the education in our State as a matter of urgency in order for there to be educated people to take over these jobs when the time comes. Surely the big picture will ultimately be that all the people of California benefit from this solution.
For those Californians who are concerned about the rise in the sales tax by ¼ percent for four years, putting it in real terms, the person who buys an $8 burrito for lunch, it would result in a two cent increase on that burrito. For the very poorest of Californians who have to worry about every penny they spend we need to remember that sales tax is not charged on basic necessities.
As we look to the future of this Golden State and ponder the pros and cons of Proposition 30 lets keep in mind the fact that passing this measure will make an enormous contribution to our children’s education as well as our public safety and buy us the time we need to look deeper at fixing the long term budget problems of the State. In the words of American Novelist Robin Cook “Education is more than a luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself”.
Bibliography:
California Federation of Teachers: http://www.cft.org/component/content/article/825.html
Proposition 30:
http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2012/general/pdf/30-title-summ-analysis.pdf
Public Policy Institute of CA:
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_409HJRB.pdf
Quote by Robin Cook:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ralf/quotes.html
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