Proposition 30 analysis: Does California need more tax money?

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Updated: 10/28/2012 | Mike Rosenberg

[SmithL]

In TV commercials and campaign stops, Gov. Jerry Brown has told Californians that voting against his tax-hike measure, Proposition 30, will mean devastating cuts for public schools. Yet the governor's finance team concedes that state spending will go up next year regardless of your vote.

So what's a voter to think? Does the state of California really need more of your money?

This newspaper's review of state budget figures found:

• The estimated $6 billion in extra revenue annually from Proposition 30 quickly would put the state on track to return to peak spending levels before the Great Recession.
• The inflation-adjusted tax burden of Californians is now about the same as the average over the past two decades- and will remain so even if Proposition 30 passes. But that tax burden is still among the highest in the nation.

If Proposition 30 fails Nov. 6- and recent polls suggest that's a strong possibility - it will take a few years for spending on schools to return to funding levels before the recession began in 2008, according to projections from the Department of Finance. But schools can't wait that long for the economy to recover to full strength, the Brown administration says.

"The idea is to more quickly rebuild the losses we've seen in education," said Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer.

Proposition 30 would temporarily raise state income tax rates on the wealthy and increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent, costing most people of modest means less than $50 in extra taxes per year.

The projected $6 billion in new revenue each year would go mostly toward education. So Brown has framed the vote as a clear choice: pass the higher taxes, or face $6 billion in "trigger cuts" that will result in higher college tuition and most likely a shorter school year.

[SmithL]

There is already money for education and essential services, but it's being used for choo-choo trains, overbearing bureaucracy, and other pork.

[JoanneSD]

Exactly, every election the schools need more money, does it ever end? I have to live within my means, I think the state should too

[BAW]

I’m a California voter. No more money for Sacramento.

[A_perfect_lady]

Well, I teach in the public school system of L.A., and here's the problem: there's always money for testing. Standardized testing, and lots of it... always money for that. Always money for experimental new programs to replace the ones they bought 2-4 years ago and abandoned as soon as they proved not to be a magic bullet. There's always money for these B.S. "training" seminars where some snazzy fast talker basically gives teachers advice that conflicts directly with the last snazzy fast talker the District sent them to 3 months ago.

Because so much money goes to this stuff, there's not enough for janitors, teachers, and office personnel. They keep cutting down on the people and adding to the quick-fixes and testing. It stinks of desperation. Now we're teaching in a filthy school with 37 kids in some of the classes, and no dean, one secretary doing the work that used to be done by two, one counselor who is missing 2 days a week for "training," and hardly any adults to supervise the halls and offices. No one to send difficult or violent kids to half the time except that one poor secretary, she ends up baby-sitting 14 year old thuglets who could beat her up and walk out with no one the wiser.

But we just got another mass email from the District offering another training seminar. Always money for training, always money for testing. And Friday we found a ton of books and CDs for an abandoned program that we don't have a teacher for anymore. I'm going to see how I can use it. I really don't get it.

So even though I am walking through graffiti and chainlink and litter every day, passing empty offices and watching our inner-city kids get more feral all the time, I'll vote NO on anything calling for more taxes. They do not spend the money wisely. Better to starve.

[GeronL]

There was an LA area school that spent $600 million n a new school, the teachers lounge looked like a strip club. No sympathy here.

[tflabo]

Read an article/video at SFGate.com about how Cal-Trans employees were using taxpayer paid rental vehicles for their own use during work hours. The investigative reporters were catching and confronting them live-—one guy was caught leaving with a wine six pack.
Then they showed the reporter trying to show MoonBeam himself their video and JB got extremely defensive and borderline hostile. Ca citizens should not pay one cent more in corrupted overtaxations.

[A_perfect_lady]

Heh. It’s probably sitting empty now. We don’t have a lounge. Actually, neither school I taught at had a teachers’ lounge.

[WriteOn]

Mismanagement doesn’t merit more money. Thanks

[tflabo]

Wow-—you deserve a whole lot of credit putting up with so much BS and still being a salt and light teacher in a leftist spawned hades hole school setting.

[Vendome]

It just goes on and on and on.

It’s just a long term project of diminishing returns.

Whadduh I know anyway?

I have never voted to increase taxes, ever....

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Cal voter here as well.

NO MORE SPENDING.

(I’m outnumbered, but I haven’t left yet...)

That said, the state is doomed.

It is only a matter of time now. Spend and spend, over and over. No responsibility. No leadership. Nothing.

[newzjunkey]

increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent, costing most people of modest means less than $50 in extra taxes per year.

That's most of a day's pay for anyone working minimum wage high unemployment, high cost CA.

[Huskrrrr]

“I’m a California voter. No more money for Sacramento.”

Dittos. I am a member of two teachers unions and have endured an avalanche junk mail from them urging me to “vote for the kids.” Enough is enough, only fiscal responsibility and private sector jobs will get us out of this hole.