California: Governor Brown thinks we’re stupid

**Posted by Phineas

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget was released yesterday (1) and it’s… Well, this is a family show, so let’s just say it’s “interesting.”

Governor Jerry Brown proposed $92.6 billion in spending for the year starting in July, an increase of about 7 percent, which will count on voters approving $7 billion of higher taxes in November.

The spending plan foresees a deficit of $9.2 billion through the next 18 months. Almost half of that is in the current fiscal year, he said. He called for $4.2 billion in cuts, mostly to welfare and programs for the poor. If the tax increase isn’t passed, Brown’s plan would cut another $4.8 billion in support for public schools and community colleges.

In other words, the government of a state that’s already suffering from too much government spending and suicidally high levels of taxation wants to increase spending and ask the voters to tax themselves more. Makes sense? It does if you’re a California liberal Democrat. I mean, we just couldn’t cut some of the myriad of needless and redundant state boards we maintain (and whose members draw six-figure salaries). We couldn’t cut the subsidized car leases and hefty per diems our elected representatives oligarchs get (2). We couldn’t find ways to increase revenue by intelligently exploiting our vast natural resources and making California once again an attractive place to do business, now could we?

Heaven forfend! Are you mad?

No, the only way to feed Sacramento’s crack habit spending needs is to raise revenue by increasing sales and income taxes, the latter especially on those filthy, evil, rich people. (That is, small business owners who create the few jobs that still are created here.) That means We The People have to agree to those taxes.

And that means Jerry has to lie to us:

The proposed 2012 budget would slash $5.2 billion in public school funding if voters reject the tax increases Brown is trying to put on the November ballot. This would include about $200 million in cuts each to the University of California and the Cal State University systems and $4.8 billion to K-12 education and community colleges. (3)

In other words, “if you don’t agree to tax yourselves more, you must hate children! My God, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” It’s the typical prediction of apocalyptic doom they hit us with every single time they ask for higher taxes. And it is absolute baloney.

A little background: under Proposition 98, passed in 1988, funds for K-12 education in California must increase every year (4); it’s required by the state constitution. As you’ll see in the summary charts for the budget (PDF, via Moe Lane), Brown’s budget includes a $4.8 billion increase in K-12 funding. Look familiar? It should; that’s the same amount cited as a “slash” in funding in the above quote. In other words, the “cut in education funding” is really the elimination of a proposed increase, not a genuine cut at all.

And that’s the lie: the “cut” the Democrats are shrieking about would really be just holding education spending at it’s already-generous level. That’s why I say they think we’re stupid. They think we’ll fall for it. But they forget they’ve tried this trick before, and it hasn’t worked. Ballot proposals for tax increases have a history here of going down to defeat. I predict this one will, too.

Because we’re not as stupid as our masters think.

via The Flash Report

UPDATE: At Cal Watchdog, Katy Grimes says the Governor is holding schoolchildren hostage.

Footnotes:
(1) Not released by Jerry, though. That was supposed to be next week. Some staffer screwed up. Ooops.
(2) In fact, all three branches of government get an increase. How… nice.
(3) With an annoyed comment from me at the bottom.
(4) The law can be suspended for a year by a 2/3rds vote of the legislature. I suspect this is what will have to happen if the voters reject the tax increase.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

Comments are closed.