Spending controls or tax increases?

Spending controls or tax increases?
California
August 5, 2005

Spending $45 million demonizing Governor Schwarzenegger and the Proposition 76 Live Within Our Means Act by the teachers union comes as no surprise. Particularly with the union's militant, selfish interest track record of going all out against any ballot measure that threatens them (such as school vouchers). And campaigning for education bond measures, including a measure that put taxpayers more easily on the hook by lowering the passage of school bonds from two-thirds to 55 percent of the vote.

The California's teachers union and the education establishment persistently complain about public education's insolvency when, in fact, they have been guaranteed over 40 percent of the state's budget since the passage of a ballot measure they backed in 1988. Since then, the education establishment has maintained a failing credit history of betraying parents, robbing students of their education, wasting taxpayer funds and being academically bankrupt... like watching a train wreck in slow motion... It's not individual teachers or other educators who are the problem, it's the inept and bloated education system.

Passing Proposition 76 on November 8th, will help put an end to government's checkered past of spending beyond its means. Certainly, it would be a giant step toward stemming the flow of dollars into the state money pit and improving California's future -- including education. Without it, as the governor recently said, it may be necessary to increase taxes. Fooling voters so many times, shame on them. Letting them continue to make fools of us, at a higher cost, shame on us.

Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
The Direct Democracy Center