There has been a proposal floating around Sacramento that calls for the UC system, which has a plethora of really outstanding medical schools and associated hospitals, to take over prisoner healthcare.  You know, that mess that has been under federal receivership for its unconstitutionality? Well, the Governor thinks, why not do a little Glee-style mashup between the UC hospitals (good) and the prison healthcare system (disaster)?  Why not indeed?

University of California leaders made clear Thursday that they were not in a rush to embrace a controversial proposal for UC to provide healthcare for state prison inmates, with an emphasis on connecting doctors and patients remotely over the Internet.

The UC regents were scheduled to discuss the issue at a meeting in San Francisco but delayed it for at least two months, deciding to form a committee to study the plan and other options. “This is a very complicated issue, and we are going to have to spend a great deal of time to determine how and if the university is going to get involved,” regents Chairman Russell S. Gould said at the meeting.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed having UC, with its prestigious medical schools, manage healthcare for prison inmates; a recent report by a consultant estimated that the change could save the state $12 billion over a decade. Besides the expansion of telemedicine, the plan calls for a special hospital for chronically ill inmates, reducing the need for overtime pay for prison guards for hospitalized patients. (LA Times)

In the end, what will probably end up happening is that there will be some advisory or small scale involvement between the UC and the prison healthcare system that will probably only make the situation more confusing.

But, if the UC deal does happen, and they do take over the health care systems, I think we may end up seeing crime sprees by the elderly and a rash of crimes from cancer victims. Heck, even with the healthcare reform bill, insurance ain’t cheap.

I kidd of course. As it stands right now, the prison system basically holds on to sick prisoners and slowly watches them die. Until recently, resources were dangerously lacking.  Much of that is changing with the receivership, as you would expect.  But the pricetag of all this remains high.

AB 656, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, would have established an oil and gas severance tax (California being the only oil and gas producing state in the union not having one) and earmarked the proceeds for puiblic higher education, giving our universities a financial base upon which to operate and easing the burden on the general fund.

On Thursday, the Assembly Appropriations Committee took action on it that essentially defeats the bill for this legislative cycle. The committee deleted the oil and gas severance tax portion of the bill and replaced it with a simple reporting requirement. The amendments require the state Board of Equalization to annually report to the legislature the amount of revenue that would be generated for public higher education if the oil and gas tax was implemented.

Maybe it can be resurrected as we get closer to trying to deal with this year’s budget problems, especially since the Governor has placed a high priority on helping the CSU’s and UC’s recoup some of their cuts.  This could be the way top offset the Governor’s political shenanigans of trying to play off higher education unions against the prison unions.  

     

   On November 19th, 52 UC Davis students were arrested after peacefully protesting the new 32% fee increases established by the UC Regents. As a second year undergraduate, I was hopeful that students were beginning to see the bigger picture: California is broken.

   Students, so far, have been forcing most of the blame on the UC Regents. While it is true that the 20 Regents who voted for the increase certainly deserve a heaving portion of the blame for borrowing tens of millions (from a non-CA bank, NY Merrill Trust) while forcing students into a cycle of debt in order to protect UC’s eerily superb bond rating, the only way for students to move towards enacting change is to recognize that UC’s woes are symptomatic of the larger disease that has infected the entire state.

   The UC student, to widen the umbrella for a movement that might have the capability of rallying support for reform, should understand that he or she risks turning people off by angling attacks towards the Regents and the Regents only. It is important to recognize that while it is a travesty that UC is becoming an unaffordable option for many California families, it is nearsighted to think that UC fees are anything more than a slice of the pie that is California’s broken political system. The state workers that have been furloughed, the elderly Californians that are losing their access to Medicare, the thousands of previously middle-class Californians that have had their homes foreclosed, and the over 12% of California that is unemployed might tell students that UC is not the only government program that is underfunded, mismanaged, and increasingly unavailable to the people who need it.

 To the single mother making $30,000 a year or the undocumented immigrant working in poor labor conditions for a less-than-legal salary, the plight of the students might seem distant and unimportant. The reality of the situation is that students are making valid points, but they are doing so in a way that turns off the millions of Californians that should be turned on by the students’ overarching message of reforming California.

   When the student recognizes that the immediate and long term problems caused by UC’s fee increases are tied together with the struggles of working families, immigrants, the elderly, homeowners, borrowers, the unemployed, water drinkers, and dozens of other California communities and interest groups, then, perhaps, we will see forward progress.

   The first point that needs to be made by students (that might catch on) is that the programs that made our state great in the 50s and 60s cannot continue to exist without proper funding.

   The message should be loud and clear: raising revenue does not mean higher taxes for everybody, it means looking at who and what gets taxed in this state, and what kind of people are hurt when programs lose funding. Here are three problems that have been generally accepted among the progressive community to be at the heart of the problem:

   Lack of an oil-severance tax in California. Who wins? Big Oil. Who loses? The People. AB 656 (Torrico) would use a 9.9% tax on Gross Product to generate up to $1 billion annually for programs like UC, CSU and CCC.

   2/3rds majority required to pass anything that raises revenue. Who wins? The CaGOP and Big Business. Who loses? Again, The People. Republicans who are indebted to special interest groups that represent Big Business are able to crush the programs that help make the California Dream a reality for many working Californians. AB 656 is expected to be an easy kill for the Republican minority, even though California is the only state in the union that does not have an oil severance tax (including Sarah’s AK and GWB’s TX).

   Proposition 13. Who wins? Big Business. Who Loses? The People. The remains of the Jarvis Taxpayer Revolution act as the most regressive and harmful tax policy in the state. With the veil of providing economic safety for elderly residents without a fixed income, the anti-tax era cursed California’s future with budget shortfalls and program cuts. It is apparent, now, that Californians can’t have our cake and eat it, too.

   So, students should be asking the question: Why is it that Chevron, Monsanto, and Walmart are allowed to raise revenue while the State of California isn’t? Why is it that CEOs are getting pay raises while the People are getting both pay cuts and program cuts?

   The students are right: the State of California has left them for dead, but they are not alone. Almost every Californian uses some sort of state-sponsored program, whether that be a UC, a public elementary school, a library, or the DMV. If you’re one of those people, and if you haven’t gotten a pay raise, then you should be ticked off, too.

NOTE: These are my prepared remarks for today’s keynote address as the Scripps Seaside Forum, sponsored by the Sustainability Alliance of Southern California, Heartland Foundation-United Green and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

It’s great to be at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, one of our country’s most important research facilities. The work of this institute has led the way in understanding climate change, the effect of the warming oceans and how we can adapt to the inevitable changes in our environment.  

I’m here today to talk to you about the next industrial revolution. The world’s economies are fueled by carbon based fuels that have polluted our atmosphere and set up a warming climate. Now when I talk about the next revolution, I don’t mean the coal-and-oil fueled economy of yesteryear. The irrefutable science of climate change requires that we take a different path, and with sound investments in renewable energy, green technology, and education, we can create a new green industrial revolution that will put countless thousands of our residents back to work.  

President Obama understands what’s at stake. Under his stimulus package, California is expected to receive more than $1.5 billion for job-creating alternative energy, energy efficiency, energy conservation, and other energy and climate related efforts. Included in this estimate, the U.S. Treasury and Energy Departments announced that at least $3 billion in competitive grants will be distributed nationwide to support an estimated 5,000 biomass, solar, wind, and other renewable energy projects. Note to Secretary Chu: consider using some of the $3 billion as a loan guarantee, thereby expanding the use of the funds.

Incentives for renewable energy generation and installation are also fueling the growth in green jobs. In just the first four months of 2009, solar installations nearly tripled compared to the year prior. Homeowners, businesses, and government all benefit from the California Solar Initiative (CSI), which provides incentives that reduce the total cost of installed systems by an average of 20 percent. Signed into law in 2006, the CSI aims to install 3,000 MW of new solar power by offering $3 billion in solar rebates over 10 years. Additionally, businesses and homeowners qualify for a federal investment tax credit of 30 percent on renewable energy systems. According to the California Community Colleges Centers of Excellence, the solar industry in California is on pace to produce 40,000 new jobs by 2016.

More over the flip…

We are seeing real progress. Today’s global economic crisis can be combated with a strong commitment to green job growth. Unemployed construction workers with minimal retraining will begin installing solar panels and wind turbines. Today’s college engineering students will be the engineers of the future, designing new renewable power plants. Scientists will find additional resources and demand to research cutting edge renewable energies like tidal, algae, or fusion power. In a very real sense, the future is now.

So where do we go from here? First and foremost, we must recommit resources to education at all levels. The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California recently found that if current trends continue, California will have one million college graduates fewer than required to keep pace with our economy’s potential growth. As the PPIC explains, “Cuts in education funding work against the state’s long term interests. […] Unless decisions and actions are taken soon to improve educational outcomes for Californians, the state’s future economy and the prosperity of its residents will be compromised.”

California’s future business climate requires a well-educated workforce, yet we are near the bottom in per pupil K-12 spending. When we cut classes, remove extracurricular enrichment, and overstuff classrooms, we deprive our students of the tools they require to succeed in a competitive global economy. From biotechnology to Internet technology, much of California’s economic prosperity depends on a scientifically literate population, yet we are at risk of leaving a generation behind. We can do better.

Higher education is also at risk. I used to say California higher education is on a slow road to starvation, but the pace seems to be quickening with every passing year. Adjusted for inflation, student fees have more than doubled at the California State University and University of California, and more than tripled at our community colleges. In 1980, 17 percent of the state budget went to higher education. This year, higher education only received 10 percent. The result: furloughs of professors and staff, 40,000 qualified students will not enter the CSU system, and more than 2,000 will not enter the UC system. These are the engineers, technicians, teachers, and nurses that we need to grow our economy. Bottom line: the best investment is education. It has a $4.31 return for every dollar we spend. We must reinvest in education, and that is why I support an oil severance charge that would generate more than $1 billion yearly for higher education.

We are at the forefront of a green industrial revolution, and how we respond to this opportunity determines our state’s future. California’s success was based on a robust, entrepreneurial private sector and prudent state investments. Job growth, environmental sustainability, and quality affordable education are interconnected like never before. The federal government is providing us with some of the tools we require to jumpstart our economy. Let’s take the baton and make California the Golden State once again.

John Garamendi is California’s Lieutenant Governor, chair of the California Commission for Economic Development, a University of California Regent, and a California State University Trustee. As a State Legislator, he authored California’s first alternative energy tax incentive.

During the University of California Board of Regents meeting today in Riverside, I explained to the Board why I think it’s time all of us — students, community leaders, bloggers, and education advocates — reject further student fee increases. Simply put, I don’t think it’s appropriate to consistently shift the tax burden, year after year, to one of the segments of our society that are least capable of affording the costs.

Adjusted for inflation, student fees have more than doubled at the UC and CSU systems and more than tripled at the community colleges since 1990. When the state dissuades students from pursuing a higher education, we only rob ourselves of potential tax revenues in later years and increase the number of today’s youths who will be tomorrow’s prisoners or recipients of aid. To address our budget woes, we need to turn away from the easy fix of taxing students and begin the process to repeal the two-thirds legislative majority requirement to pass budgets and adjust taxes.

A transcript of my remarks to the board is below the fold, and you can also listen to audio here.

My statement at the UC Board of Regents meeting:

“The proposed budget that was signed basically requires that this group of regents approve a 9.3 percent increase in the fees, which amounts to something slightly less than $700. It’s interesting to note that the legislature decided to not increase other fees by some amount or another but instead decided to impose upon the students what could arguably – and I’ll make that argument – be called a tax of $700 additional tax on every student in the University of California system, and about half that amount in an additional tax increase for every student in the CSU system. That is a particularly stupid tax policy when there are further options available. I’ll just point out that the one percent increase in the sales tax of somebody who chooses to buy a $50,000 Mercedes would amount to some $500 increase in their tax burden. There are options out there, and what I would hope that this body would consider is to stand up and fight. And to push back. To push back really hard, because you are powerful, and the university is powerful. It has a voice, and it really ought to use its voice to stand up and fight and say, “Enough.” Enough already. Enough of stupid taxes on students. Enough of the starvation of the education system. We are starving this system, and in doing so, we are destroying the economic potential for the future. And I think we really have to stand up and fight. You got to push back. We just can’t say, “Well, there’s nothing we can do. We’re just going to have to accept it.” I’m all for a fight, and that’s a fight about the future, at least in my opinion.”

I don’t know how many times I have read this kind of article this decade, but it’s still once too often:

Facing a significant budget shortfall, the University of California plans to increase tuition at its 10 campuses by nearly 10 percent by July, in time for the summer session.

The proposed 9.3 percent fee increase would raise basic tuition for undergraduate students from $7,126 a year to about $7,789. In addition, various student services fees are also expected to rise….

Birgeneau said middle-class families will bear the brunt of the tuition increase.

Under the proposal, families earning more than $100,000 would pay the full fee increase. Families earning from $60,000 to $100,000 would pay half the fee increase, or about 4.65 percent. Families earning less than $60,000 would not be subject to the fee increase.

Even considering this graduated level of increased tuition, the price is unsustainable. An annual tuition of $7,500 is out of the reach of most families, period. It’s nearly double what I paid from 1996 to 2000, and is a 570% increase over what a UC grad would have paid from 1961 to 1965. Student loans might make up the difference, but those are much more difficult to get during a credit crunch and even if you can get one, they’ll be an anchor around your neck for decades, preventing you from finding financial security.

As I argued here back in October 2007, this is all likely part of a deliberate move to privatize public education slowly but surely over time. The Schwarzenegger Administration in 2004 rolled out a plan to raise fees and cut funding in order to accomplish this privatization goal.

Although the UC and CSU systems (which are likely to follow UC in making their own fee increases soon) remain officially public entities, they have been effectively privatized over time, as their funding now depends on private giving or student payments. The state contribution is now becoming almost incidental – with this recent budget nearly 80% of UC funding is coming from sources other than the state of California.

Even with the massive fee increases, educational quality isn’t necessarily going to be sustained. New faculty hires are going to be dramatically scaled back, meaning new profs who bring new ideas and fresh blood to the university – and who often bring the best teaching to the classroom – will be fewer in number.

The original goal of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education was to guarantee access to college and affordability for those who were qualified in order to grow the middle class in California. It worked spectacularly, creating one of the leading economies of the globe over the last 50 years. But in the last 20 years this has begun to ebb, as fewer people can afford higher ed. And as the California Budget Project’s study A Generation of Inequality found, young college educated Californians have had a harder time finding work than those with just a high school diploma while they are saddled with debts they cannot pay off.

In Vietnam they “destroyed the village in order to save it.” Here in California, it seems clear that the goal is just to destroy higher education  and the economic mobility and the foundation of the middle class along with it. It’s time for us to determine how to reverse this trend.