Crooks and Liars has an interesting piece today, tracing California's current fiscal woes back to 1978's passage of Proposition 13.
Here in Wisconsin we have our own version, although ours is not part of the state constitution ... yet. The other thing unique about our revenue caps that supposedly give tax relief to property owners, is that they specifically target K-12 public school districts. Our then-Governor Tommy Thompson (remember Tommy? He ran for the Republican nomination in the last presidential election) had a personal vendetta against teachers. He gave us the revenue caps and took away our right to bargain fair contracts, two gifts that have kept on giving for the last 16 years.
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3 comments:
Thanks for showing sharing the Crooks and Liars site, very interesting place. I was aware that the so-called "tax payers revolt" authored by Jarvis and Gann spread beyond California, even though it was a crock of shit. They had false adds telling voters that elderly people had lost their houses to high property tax bills, and after the election in '78 it came out that this hadn't actually happened. The voters had been manipulated again. Sad that this shit all started in California to hurt so many people in other states.
Right now our biggest problems in California seem to be a yearly budget held hostage by another terrible proposition that requires a nearly impossible 2/3 majority...so the gov and his republican minority can hold the whole state hostage, cutting social programs and education while giving huge tax breaks to their corporate campaign contributers. Arnold is an ass, and it has occurred to me that he's given 30,000 public school employees freedom to work against him by underfunding education and laying us off. By the way, his cuts to education are in violation to the state constitution, and the California Teachers Association is preparing to sue him for it once again.
My eyes often glaze over when I try to follow news stories. I still don't know the difference between the Senate and the House. I admire you for following this so closely and for knowing what "caps" are. Mr. Thompson put aside for a moment, it strikes me that teachers have long gotten the short end of the stick. I'm not talking about the 1960s. Even in Early America the teachers had to barter for firewood and pencils. It seems so wrong.
Crayons, I think there are people whose brains are still set to those times. They think we should still be boarding with families in the community, a different family every month ...
It was nice to see you on Sunday!!
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