Campus Democrats made one final push for Proposition 30 in a rally on Sproul Plaza on the eve of Election Day Monday.
The rally, which drew around 200 people, was organized by the Cal Berkeley Democrats and the ASUC. Prominent figures at the rally, including campus professor Robert Reich, Rep. Barbara Lee and State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, urged students to vote and highlighted the significance of students’ role in passing Prop. 30.
Robert Reich, a campus professor and former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration, began the rally by addressing the cynicism toward politics common among college students.
“Voting is the privilege of doing what you feel is right,” Reich said. “Proposition 30 raises taxes on the citizens best able to pay them and provides funding to those less capable — a worthy trade-off.”
Crafted by Gov. Jerry Brown, Prop. 30 would raise income taxes on the wealthiest Californians on a sliding scale and increase the sales tax by a quarter of a percentage point for four years to fund public education.
If voters fail to approve the measure Tuesday, the university is set to lose $250 million this fiscal year. As a result, students could see a tuition hike of up to 20.3 percent in January — an estimated $2,400 increase for students.
“The people who would be taxed have reaped the benefits of the UC, and it’s time for them to give back,” said ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahryar Abbasi at the rally.
California State Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, who represents Berkeley, said the heightened sales tax amounted to “an extra quarter-penny on a cheeseburger.”
Champions for the proposition also noted the symbolic implications of the measure, saying that passing Prop. 30 would represent a vote of confidence in the UC system.
“We’ve disinvested in education in the last 20 years,” said Lockyer, who founded the campus CalDems group in 1960. “We need to reverse that trend and see that we’re doing the very best for our future by continuing these investments.”
Conversely, Berkeley College Republicans Executive Director Shawn Lewis, who answered questions about opposition to the measure, criticized the proposition as a means to manipulate students into voting for legislation that will not necessarily allocate funding to schools. Lewis said the budget cuts are only necessary because of a state budget crafted by Democrats, deeming Prop. 30 a way for Democrats to “save them from themselves.”
“Students are being used, and their fear is being used to pass this tax increase that won’t even directly benefit them,” he said. “(Democrats) are projecting billions of dollars on the high-speed rail — why cut schools?”
Lewis added that the absence of speakers against Prop. 30 at the rally hampered its educational value.
Brown has said the reason higher education often ends up on the chopping block is because it is one of the few parts of the budget that the state can cut without losing additional federal funding.
“If Prop. 30 fails, it would be such a terrible slide backwards,” said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates at the rally. “This is an opportunity to encourage people to reinvest in UC and improve our education system — the foundation of our economy.”
Contact Virgie Hoban at [email protected].
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I voted no.
Reich said “Proposition 30 raises taxes on the citizens best able to
pay them and provides funding to those less capable — a worthy
trade-off.”
He is wrong. Prop 30 raises sales taxes on everyone, poor and rich. And it does not provide funding to those less capable. It provides funding to the state’s General Fund, and the state then hands it to local schools which are under tremendous pressure to use the money to pay their underfunded teacher’s pensions. The rest is given to Public Safety, which is a euphemism for prison guards’ union. Not a dime comes to Cal. Any time Robert Reich makes a speech, you can bet it favors unions somehow because he was Clinton’s Labor Secretary and had a long career as a union advocate.
NO on 30
Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to make voters an offer they can’t refuse. He knows that Californians value education, so he is traveling up and down the state threatening voters with deep cuts to schools if his Proposition 30 tax hike initiative doesn’t pass. The ugly truth about Proposition 30 that the governor fails to tell voters is that Proposition 30 is a gimmick to backfill the state’s budget and doesn’t guarantee any new funding for schools.
Proposition 30 is just a $50 billion political shell game. Politicians can take existing money for schools and use it for other programs and then replace that money with the revenue raised from Proposition 30′s higher taxes. We never really know where the money is going.
Proposition 30′s inherent flaws have been exposed by state officials and others. The California School Boards Association stated, “The governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools.”
If that isn’t enough, look no further than the initiative itself. The official title and summary of Proposition 30 says the money can be used for “paying for other spending commitments.” The Wall Street Journal concluded, “The dirty little secret is that the new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers’ pension fund.” It doesn’t get much more clear than that.
Despite the governor’s reliance on the popularity of education in his effort to extort more from taxpayers, spending on K-12 schools has risen by $9 billion over the last 10 years. The current fiscal year is no exception. Total school funding increases in 2012-13 whether Proposition 30 passes or not, by $1.2 billion. That means a budget increase of $610 per pupil. We will continue to spend nearly half our state general fund budget on education.
And when the governor claims that these tax increases are “temporary,” voters should immediately see a red flag. Proposition 30 would increase the state budget and spending, but since there is no provision that would reduce that spending when the taxes expire, the state would have to make up for the loss of $6 billion in revenue. This would create enormous pressure to make these tax increases permanent or even bigger.
The loopholes and gimmicks in Proposition 30 prove that this is just another tax-and-spend scheme for which Sacramento politicians are notorious. They are trying to dupe voters into believing that the money generated from Proposition 30 will go to our schools but, in reality, our classrooms aren’t guaranteed one single penny.
Proposition 30 allows the pay-for-play Sacramento politicians to continue their irresponsible spending and pass the bill on to taxpayers. No changes, nor reforms – just more spending. Holding our schools hostage in an attempt to extort more taxpayer money is not a tactic to which voters will respond favorably.
We need real reform that will cut waste, eliminate bureaucracy and guarantee that our money gets to the classroom. Let’s give California students the quality education they deserve by changing the system first so we can make sure that education funds are being used wisely and efficiently.