Half of Middle Class Scholarship Act passes in state assembly

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Half of the legislation that makes up the California Middle Class Scholarship Act passed in the state Assembly Wednesday.

Assembly Bill 1501, which passed in a 54-to-15 vote, establishes the Middle Class Scholarship Program, which would cut fees for middle-class UC and CSU students by two-thirds and would also reduce fees at the California Community Colleges.

Its partner bill, Assembly Bill 1500, would close the single sales factor tax loophole that allows out-of-state corporations to choose their tax rates, with the additional taxes collected funding the program. The second bill must pass the legislature in order to provide the necessary funding for the program.

According to the author of the act, state Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, the loophole currently drains $1 billion out of California each year.

“With the collapse of our economy, we’ve made our colleges and universities more expensive and less accessible,” Perez said in a video on the scholarship act website. “The Middle Class Scholarship Act intends to turn that around.”

Assembly bill 1500 has been met with opposition from companies such as Chrysler, General Motors, International Paper and Kimberly-Clark. The companies’ coalition, California Employers Against Higher Taxes, claims the bill would add $1 billion in taxes for businesses that provide jobs to middle-class Californians, according to the coalition’s website.

On May 2, the UC Student Association called for a boycott of products manufactured or supplied by out-of-state companies in protest of the coalition’s efforts against AB 1500.

Darius Kemp, director of organizing and communications for the association, said the association is happy with Wednesday’s outcome and will keep pushing for the act to appear on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk as soon as possible.

Christopher Yee is an assistant news editor.

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Archived Comments (12)

  1. Bolt Gun for Slave Cattle says:

    Wonder how many scholarships that douchy logo design and wallpaper behind him would pay for. WTF does he think he is, Goebbels? Just more evidence that the true victory, the ultimate victory, is taking people like that and depriving them of their ego entirely, making them admit it’s all bs and punishing them for their egomania all these years at our expense. When the system fails we will take pleasure in their psychological and physical suffering.

  2. Guestabc says:

    Define “middle class”, especially in California.  I’d be considered wealthy in the Midwest or South, but in CA, affording a median-priced home is quite a stretch at times.

  3. Guest says:

    Does anyone know if this would only apply to California residents, or if it will also be for out-of-state students?

  4. Phailium says:

    DailyCal staff are asleep at the switch today:

    On Oct. 28, 19 days before he was shot by UC Berkeley police, Travis pointed a gun at a Berkeley police officer who had responded to a call of a shots fired in an apartment bedroom.”Travis pulled the side back on the gun, ejecting a round of ammunition from the chamber, grinned and slowly gave the gun over to,” the officer, the report said.

    Sounds like BPD are incompetent.

    Why wasn’t this guy prosecuted for this shit?

    Why wasn’t the weapon seized at that time?

    http://www.insidebayarea.com/berkeley/ci_20743401/uc-berkeley-officer-cleared-shooting-death-business-student
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/30/BASK1OP2BJ.DTL

  5. libsrclowns says:

    Mini Me Lib punks Obama and his policies:

    Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Berkeley Professor and Obama supporter has an unsettling message for 2012 college graduates:  “You’re screwed.”
    The blistering verdict came as part Mr. Reich’s Sunday column addressed to “Members of the Class of 2012″ wherein the former Labor secretary decries the current state of jobs and opportunities for recent college graduates entering the Failed Obama economy:
    As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you’re picking up today.
    You’re screwed.
    First, you’re going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job in the Obama economy.  The job market you’re heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year’s class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking.  
    That’s been the pattern over the last three graduating classes ever since Obama was elected:  It’s been taking graduates more than a year to land the first job. And those who still haven’t found a job will be competing with you, making your job search even harder.
    Contrast this with the Bush class of 2008, whose members were lucky enough to get out of here and into the job market before the Great Recession really hit. Almost three-quarters of them found jobs within the year.
    Last year’s young college graduates lucky enough to land jobs had an average hourly wage of only $16.81, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s about $35,000 a year – lower than the yearly earnings of young college graduates in 2007, before the Recession. The typical wage of young college graduates dropped 4.6 percent between 2007 and 2011, adjusted for inflation.

    Yup, even hard core LibTard Reich calls out Obama as a failure.  If you want to get a good job you must oust Obama and his economic illiterate Lib cabal in Washington.

    • Guest says:

       Of course Obama is a failure…he’s a capitalist just like all the other ones. The fact that he’s been in office during the downturn phase of our ever-so-stable economy sucks for him.

      • libsrclowns says:

        Why Obama will be a One Termer….worse than Carter.

        Barack Hussein Obama is a self-created myth, polished further by David Axelrod and a compliant media.  He is a chameleon who takes on whatever shape and form best suit his purposes and goals.  There is little substance behind the façade other than an Elmer Gantry style of politics.  He is completely malleable into whatever form and shape best serve his personal interests.

        A few examples of this “flexibility” are the following:

        He changed his name when he believed it served him to do so.
        He is not a religious man, but he joined a Black Liberation Church to sell his bona fides to the black community in his early days in Chicago.
        He said that preacher Jeremiah Wright was like his father yet threw him under the bus when it became convenient (necessary).
        He claimed to have been born in Kenya in order to enhance book sales as a younger man.
        He likely lied on his applications to college to gain foreign student status.  At the time, that category provided more favorable admission and funding treatment than afforded domestic blacks.
        He claimed to be a constitutional professor when he was neither a professor nor particularly well-versed in the Constitution.

        Obama’s track record is abysmal. Floyd and Mary Beth Brown discussed four of Obama’s failures:

        Obama’s 825 billion dollar stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8 percent as promised. Since President Obama’s stimulus passed, America has lost 1.1 million jobs. If you count people who have become discouraged and are no longer seeking jobs, some economists believe that real unemployment rate is above twenty percent.
        Obama called his health care package one of his major accomplishments. He told CBS’ Steve Kroft he was “putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering health care costs.” Yet it has failed to make health insurance more affordable. According to the fact watchdog website FactCheck.org, ObamaCare is actually making health care “less affordable.” Workers paid an average of $132 more for family coverage just this year.
        Obama predicted his investments in green energy would create 5 million jobs, but the Wall Street Journal reports: “The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade, America would have five million green jobs, but so far, some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.”
        Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half, saying: “And that’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.” Even if every part of Obama’s deficit reduction proposal was enacted, the deficit at the end of his first term would still be $1.33 trillion, more than twice what he promised.
        In addition:

        His Obamacare legislation, despite all the state propaganda supporting it, remains unpopular and is viewed by more than half the country as unconstitutional.  Recent hearings in front of the Supreme Court were embarrassing to the administration.  The legislation is wildly over-budget and threatens to accelerate the bankruptcy of the nation.  Further, the more people begin to deal with its implementation, the more unworkable it is considered and the more it is considered a mistake.  Obama’s trophy piece of legislation is increasingly viewed as an unworkable, unmitigated disaster.
        Relations between Republicans and Democrats and blacks and whites are worse than at any time in my lifetime.  The former is on evidence every day.  The latter has been emphasized with the circus surrounding the tragic death of Trayvon Martin.
        The country’s foreign policy is a growing embarrassment.  America has alienated many of its allies.  America and its enemies are not doing so well, either.  We don’t have a Cold War, although we don’t need one with what is happening.  Russia is not our ally.  China is exerting its newly developed muscle.  Iran openly mocks the president as it proceeds to nuclear weaponry.  North Korea plays Lucy with the football, and Charlie Brown falls for the trick every time.  The Mid-East is in shambles, with the Arab Spring being nothing more than the replacement of tyrants who were friendly to the U.S. with tyrants who are not.  Israel looks like it will have to act alone against its existential threat.
        The economy has not improved despite record stimulus.  Economic statistics are routinely “massaged” to make outcomes look better.  Suffocating regulations, increasing debt levels and regime uncertainty prevent recovery.  Capital and talent increasingly flee the U.S.
        Obama has mortgaged the country’s future with his spending.  By the time of the election, he will have added almost $6 trillion in new debt.  There is no interest in cutting spending despite the doomsday warnings from multiple sources.  Markets will eventually choose how and when the spending will cease.  It will be at the convenience of markets when matters cease.  Likely this timing will not be favorable to the country’s preferences.
        Gasoline prices are soaring.  The so-called “green energy” initiative has been exposed as corrupt political payoffs that will not produce economic energy for decades, if ever.  Coal is under attack, exploration for oil is unnecessarily restricted, pipelines are stymied, and power plants are closing.  Politically correct politics moves us away from modernity toward the Stone Age.
        Obama is no longer seen as The One — just, instead, as another scheming Chicago politician.  He is increasingly viewed as arrogant, dishonest, and incompetent.  These are not messianic attributes.  He is just another politician, although more flawed than most.
        A great mistake was made in 2008.  That mistake is now blatantly apparent to most voters and most political analysts around the world. 

        Nothing Obama promised has been accomplished.  Furthermore, much of what he did added to the country’s problems

        • I_h8_disqus says:

          I don’t think Obama will be a one term president for the simple fact that Romney isn’t Ronald Reagan.  Reagan gave hope to the nation when it was down, and Romney doesn’t seem to be filling anyone with hope.  The republican’s presidential candidates seem to be cannon fodder, and better candidates will run next term.

          • Guest says:

                 Berkeley’s Mayor Tom Bates should be ashamed when he makesthe disingenuous statement in this article “It’s not criminalizinghomelessness, we want people to come to Berkeley, to shop and spend money inBerkeley,” Of course, the proposal is criminalizing homelessness….as well asBerkeley residents and tourists who would sit or lie in a commercial area. Inaddition, it would never create the effect Bates wants which is to increaserevenue for Berkeley or theirbusinesses.

             

                 This law doestargets the homeless as it is designed to push people off the streets of Berkeley.Rather than taking on the issue of homelessness in a responsible manner bynegotiating with banks to open up the hundreds if not thousands of foreclosureswithin its   city limits for the homeless or using thecity’s power of eminent domain to take over the property and serve the city’spoor, the Mayor would rather arrest them, fill our city and county jails withthem and issue them tickets for fines they cannot pay.  We spend more money for enforcement than weever hope to collect.

             

                According to a2008 article in Reuters there are 18.6 million vacant homes in the United States and 3.5 million houseless people inthe county. Of the 3.5 million houseless  people at least 1.6 million are children. Onany given night almost 68,000 veterans experience homelessness. Seniors, thedisabled and families are also homeless as companies like Hewlett Packardannounce almost 5,000 lay offs. These numbers can only be rising as time goeson with no remedy to the conditions that created them. Rather than addressingthis problem responsibly by providing housing, the City of Berkleywould rather sweep these people off the streets.

             

                AmnestyInternational has stated housing is a fundamental human right yet fewpoliticians seek to address the problem that is its charge: providing thebasics for its people.

             

               This proposal willdo nothing to accomplish the Mayor’s goal of bringing: “….people to come to Berkeley,to shop and spend money…” Just in case the Mayor has not noticed, we are in aneconomic recession. This economic situation is being felt all over the worldeven as “1 in 2 Americans have fallen into poverty or are struggling to live onlow incomes in the United States”(http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/…). As Stephanie Falwell, a clinic director at the UC Berkeley Suitcase Clinic,said in this article “…areas the city of San Franciscothought their ordinance would improve are now facing economic decline.”

             

                Besides the Mayor, Roland Peterson, theExecutive Director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District and itsPresident, Craig Becker, owner of The Med on Telegraph have been proponents ofthis law. Becker has hired his “Ambassadors” to troll through the streets of Berkeleyto ostensibly “…keep sidewalks clean and serve as the eyes and ears ofcommunity”. Rather these individuals with no legal authority for anything theydo harass people on the streets of Berkeley.

             

                Berkeleyresidents see this harassment by the “ambassadors” and the police every day.What it does is NOT make us feel safe but rather FEEL DISGUST and turned off tothe business proprietors who pay for and support this harassment. What money wehave we take out of town to a place who does not treat its residents in this manner.

             

                IF ANYONE HAS NOT CHECKED THE MED LATELY, ITIS PRACTICALLY VACANT. Why is that? It is because Berkeley’sresidents will not go into The Med knowing what Becker and Peterson have done toits own by using their “Ambassadors” and the police to harass the poor, our veterans,our homeless, our children, our seniors, our disabled and our needy. Who wantsto give money to people like Becker who is the source of the problem? There isfor all intents and purposes a BOYCOTT OF THE MED and that has and will transferto any other businesses that support this proposal.

             

                CONTACT THEMEMBERS OF THE CITY OF COUNCIL IN BERKELEYAND TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON THIS PROPOSAL!! 

             

                      

          • I_h8_disqus says:

            What article are you commenting about?

  6. libsrclowns says:

    Bye bye High Tax Cali….take money and run….meanwhile Moonbeam yammers about more Taxes….TOTAL FAIL

    California is known for more onerous taxes and regulations, and the Tax foundation shows similar trends of migration from there to other states like Texas and Arizona.

    The Tax Foundation ranked the Golden State sixth highest in the nation for state and local tax burden in 2009.

    Between 2000 and 2010, the most recent data available, 551,914 people left California for Texas, taking $14.3 billion in income.  Texas has no state income tax or estate tax.

    A total of 48,877 people moved to Texas from California between 2009 and 2010 alone, totaling $1.2 billion in income.  Another 28,088 from California relocated to Nevada and 30,663 to Arizona, a loss of  $699.1 million and $707.8 million in income respectively.

    Overall, California had the most departures between 2009 and 2010 – 406,883 people, representing a loss of $10.6 billion in income. Over that year 365,763 people moved there, representing a net loss of 41,120 residents.

    Since 2000 1.2 million more people have left California than have moved there, the second biggest net loss, after New York.

    Libs continue to FAIL on Tax Policy….Clueless about Econ growth.