(brilliant ideas – promoted by Robert in Monterey)
In a recent report in the Bee, CA State Treasurer Bill Lockyer brainstorms ways to balance the state budget, including a suggestion that that we consider cutting the UC system off of all public funds, and having “public” universities raise their own funds by – you guessed it – raising student fees. As if the state hasn’t already kicked students in the gut repeatedly by jacking up tuition and fees, turning our public universities into de facto private institutions.
This from the same “Democrat” who proudly said he voted for Schwarzeneggar for the recall in 2003. And a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1965, back when tuition was so low as to be nearly free. But I guess those were different times, eh Bill?
But in a sense, Lockyer is right despite himself. The state infrastructure is woefully underfunded and underbuilt, given our growing population. We’ve got a 25 million person infrastructure in a 37 million person state, and we’re headed towards 50 million in the decades to come. Yet his proposals largely suck. So what else could we do, since we’re in modest proposal mode?
Lest I be accused of mere churlish sniping from the sidelines, I’ll bite:
1. Legalize pot and decriminalize all other drugs, with an amnesty for every inmate locked up in CA jails for the victimless crime of nonviolent possession of drugs. Tax the pot, and use the savings from the criminal justice system + new tax revenue to a) fully fund local addiction treatment clinics and clean needle exchanges, and b) pay down the deficit. Most of the social costs of drug use stem from their criminalization, not the chemicals themselves. Far better to deal with the actual addiction through medical treatment, leave people who can handle it alone, and tell the prison industry and the prison guards’ unions to find another cash cow to exploit.
2. While we’re at it, repeal the 3 strikes law that has clogged our prisons with nonviolent offenders. A new prison costs the same as a new college, and housing an inmate in an overcrowded cell block is around the same cost as educating a student. Instead of slashing public eductaion, why not reduce the % of the California population we’re warehousing?
3. Repeal Prop. 13. If that’s too scary for timid defenders of the status quo, afraid of what Howard Jarvis’s winged monkeys might say in attack ads, why not take a baby step and repeal it just for commercial property? Corporations never die, so why should they pay 1978 tax rates for eternity?
4. Pass SB 840, Sheila Kuhl’s Universal Health Insurance Act, which will remove a huge source of our growing state deficit, namely rising insurance costs for state employees, which effectively funnels budget funds directly into health insurance corporations’ profit margins, at a rate far exceeding inflation. Private health insurance is a huge part of the problem, and removing profit from the equation would help the budget planning process out tremendously.
5. Raise taxes, both income and (if you’re courageous enough) wealth taxes. There’s a ton of big money sitting around in this state, and for all the whinging about excessive taxes, our rates are fairly low compared to most other large urbanized states.
6. Stop borrowing money to pay for programs that could be funded outright; pay as you go with taxes. The “no tax” approach to the state costs us a huge amount more in the long run just on interest payments alone. Some things (infrastructure projects, for example) make sense with bonds and debt financing, but most of the initiative bond measure stuff should just be part of the regular budget. Which brings us to…
7. Change the 2/3 raising tax and budget supermajority requirements to simple majorities. Asking a virulently antigovernment, antitax, anti-public good Republican party rump have veto power on the state of California’s future is just absurd. If they want to dictate terms, then perhaps they should win a majority first.
Will Democrats follow any of these ideas? Probably not, but they’re all better than junking the state public higher eductaion system just to balance the books in the short term.
originally at surf putah