Today’s LA Times has an interesting series of op-eds by historians and authors examining how past governors dealt with budget crises. It’s an interesting look not only at how those governors all helped build the prosperous state that we’re living off of today, but also how the real problem with the budget isn’t a lack of pragmatism or deal-making, but ideology. And since the articles were commissioned by California Backward they are particularly important in shaping how we will respond to this crisis.

The profile of Pete Wilson by Greg Lucas and Ronald Reagan by Lou Cannon both argue that pragmatism and a willingness to deal is the key to budget success. Lucas’ portrait of the contentious 1991 budget negotiations is designed to make us wistful even for Pete Wilson’s leadership (if you forget 1994, that is). Wilson understood that tax increases were going to be necessary to balance the budget AND to get Democratic support, so he outflanked them by proposing his own increases and then spending the summer cutting the deals necessary to get Dems to agree and to turn enough Republicans, one by one, to his view.

Cannon’s portrait of Reagan emphasizes similar qualities – that despite their “novice amateur” abilities, Reagan and his advisors knew that a tax increase was necessary to balance the 1967 budget and avoid crippling cuts. Reagan did so, and therefore helped continue California’s remarkable 20th century economic expansion by supporting the government services that growth depended on.

What both these portraits miss – alongside Jim Newton’s profile of Earl Warren, an unconvincing effort to see Arnold as a latter-day Warren, is the role of ideology in the budget. Warren, Reagan and Wilson were able to negotiate budget solutions because they did not define their Republicanism by a virulent anti-tax conservatism – even in Reagan’s case, and Reagan had spent the 1960s leading the right-wing takeover of the California Republican Party.

They also governed at times when Democrats had spines. This was particularly true in 1991, where Democratic intransigence and demands for a better deal were all that forced Pete Wilson to propose and stick to his tax plans. Most of those taxes survived until the late 1990s, when led by Tom McClintock, the state legislature – including Democrats – voted to spend that tax money on foolish and short-sighted tax cuts rather than putting it in a rainy day fund or investing in infrastructure. During Arnold’s term Democrats have caved in to his demands so often that Arnold no longer sees Democratic demands as worth taking seriously.

The ascension of Tom McClintockism within the Republican Party goes to the heart of the budget matter, showing that it is about ideology, not deal-making. How can today’s Republican cut deals on taxes when the Howard Jarvis Association, CRA, and other right-wing groups are ready to destroy a Republican legislator’s career for doing so? The only Republican not in thrall to those folks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is instead in thrall to Milton Friedman’s shock doctrine theories.

So it was very welcome to read Ethan Rarick’s profile of Pat Brown. Rarick is the author of the excellent California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown. In his profile Rarick refuses to emphasize Brown’s leadership qualities and instead focuses on the underlying ideological and structural contexts. He was the only author to mention the 2/3 requirement. And he understood the importance of ideology:

More important than procedural changes, however, are ideological ones.

In Brown’s day, the country remained in the grip of the so-called New Deal consensus, a mood far more receptive to the idea that government played a constructive role in our society and had to be amply funded. Brown used to say of himself, “I’m a big-government man,” a phrase that would nowadays be uttered by no politician, left, right or center.

It’s true that Republicans tended to be more skeptical of government than Democrats, but they were neither unanimous nor intransigent on the point….

So I’m quite sure I know what Pat Brown would do if he were governor today, or at least what he would want to do and try to do. He would trumpet government’s positive role, insist that those who benefit the most from our society should pay the most, and set about enacting policies to create a public sector that was funded both fully and fairly. In short, he would raise taxes, especially on the rich.

But the real question is not what Pat Brown would do. Given the differences in ideological climate between his day and ours, the real question is: Would we let him?

It’s an excellent set of points he makes. I wonder though if California Backward will even listen to him. A group composed of centrist high Broderists is much more likely to prefer a call for more deal-making that will nevertheless produce conservative solutions to a rousing defense of the policies that made California great, and an attack on the conservative policies that have produced this budget crisis.

The other night I received an e-newsletter from my Assemblyman, Republican Roger Niello. Here’s some of what it said:

“We begin this year’s Budget Conference Committee with the assumption that billions of dollars will be raised from new, unspecified taxes.  This is a fantasy of the majority party only.  Pushing only for higher taxes and refusing to consider any significant budget savings is irresponsible and reckless.  Republicans have been very clear that there is no support for the massive tax increases that have been proposed.  As the conference committee begins its work, I hope that we will work together to find significant budget savings and pass the necessary reforms to balance the budget without raising taxes.”

I sent Mr. Niello this response:

“You begin this year’s Budget Conference Committee with the assumption that billions of dollars will be raised from new, draconian budget cuts.  This is a fantasy of the minority party only.  Pushing only for significant budget savings and refusing to consider raising revenue is irresponsible and reckless.  Democrats and the people of California  have been very clear that there is no support for the massive program cuts thatt have been proposed.  As the conference committee begins its work, I hope that you will work together to find needed revenues and pass the necessary reforms to balance the budget without cutting essential programs and services.”

(Cross posted from the Health Access WeBlog)

The news coverage of the budget, if anything, has downplayed the impact of the budget on health care. Let me focus on what we consider is the biggest of the cuts newly announced yesterday, that would impact the most number of people.

The San Francisco Chronicle mentions that the Medi-Cal eligibility cut would mean that “40,000 poor working parents, who now receive comprehensive Medi-Cal coverage, would have their benefits reduced if they earn more than about $12,000 for a family of three.”

Actually, these parents, who would make roughly $10,736-$17,600/year for a family of three, would lose access to Medi-Cal coverage. Some might be eligible for other programs, but many would simply become uninsured.

More to the point, the 39,000 people impacted in the first year is only the beginning. In a few years, after full implementation, the cut would deny coverage to 439,000 Californians.

The Los Angeles Times described it in this way, that the budget would “Deny thousands of impoverished parents healthcare coverage that they now have through the state’s Medi-Cal program. Under the change, a single parent with one child who earns more than $8,540 a year would no longer be eligible.” Tha was correct, but downplayed the massive scale of the cut–that the impact was eventually deny hundreds of thousands of Californians.

The Sacramento Bee has an article that doesn’t go into the specific horror of the cuts.

The sidebar that describes the budget “highlights” doesn’t even mention this cut to Medi-Cal eligibility–even though it is the health cut with the biggest impact in the May Revise. That sidebar does list some of the bad cuts, but also neglects to mention a major-dollar proposed cut from January, that would also eliminate key benefits, like dental, optometry, and podiatry, for millions of adults on coverage. It’s unclear why some cuts were included and other, bigger cuts were not.

Let’s hope that future coverage of the budget goes into the full implications of what is being proposed here. The cuts are bad enough that they don’t need embellishment, but they do need coverage, so Californians can understand the stark choices, and how they would impact our fellow citizens and our health system.

The AP has gotten a hold of the governor’s May Revise speech and therefore the major budget proposals that are to be unveiled tomorrow. The key elements are described below and over the flip I provide some analysis of each proposal.

• Arnold will float bonds using the state lottery as security. $15 billion over 3 years will be raised but $10 billion goes into “rainy day fund”
• If that fails, 1% sales tax hike to last no more than 3 years
• Prop 98 suspension abandoned; instead COLA will not be paid
• State parks closures abandoned; instead fees to rise $1 to $2
• $6 billion still left to cut or balance out somehow.”

Overall thoughts: Here we go again. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to office in the recall of Gray Davis in 2003 promising to solve our state’s budget problems once and for all. Instead he immediately blew a $6 billion hole in the budget with the Vehicle License Fee cut and then borrowed to close the rest of the gap – costing the state around $3 billion in annual debt service.

Now that Arnold’s solution has predictably failed, he is predictably offering more of the same. Borrowing against the lottery is a problematic concept for many reasons, the main one being it avoids the core issues of our budget. It’s yet another one-time fix that does nothing to solve the structural revenue shortfall that has plagued our state for 30 years.

It is significant that Arnold seems to be backing away from his most significant cuts – especially the K-12 cuts. Obviously the details released tomorrow will be key, and we should fully expect higher ed to take another crippling blow. But this does indicate that the activism many of us have launched against the primary schools cuts has had an impact.

And of course, there’s still $6 billion left over – $6 billion that the Yacht Party will insist come in the form of destructive cuts that damage the economy, $6 billion that Democrats will – we hope – insist come in the form of wise, long-term revenue solutions.

Finally, Arnold seems to be gambling that the economy will make a quick recovery and that the current woes are just a dip and not the opening stages of a deeper recession. That, I think, is a major and probably reckless gamble to make.

Thoughts on the specific items are below.

Borrowing against the state lottery: this seems to be at the core of Arnold’s new plan. As described by the AP:

The governor will propose raising $15 billion over the next three years by selling bonds based on anticipated lottery revenue. He will use about $5.1 billion of that for the 2008-09 fiscal year to help erase the deficit, administration officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The other $10 billion would be left in a reserve fund the governor wants to create as part of a budget-reform proposal. It would be intended to ease the effect of year-to-year revenue fluctuations.

The revenue proposal – which administration officials refer to as “securitizing” the lottery – would require voter approval because the lottery was established through the initiative process.

As I explained above this is a clever way to avoid the basic issues here – ride it out another year or two and dump the problem onto the 2010 gubernatorial race. Borrowing the lottery funds is designed to ease the need for the most destructive cuts without raising taxes, and the rainy day fund seems to be a clear sweetener for Republicans to along with this scheme.

Schools: The AP describes the education budgeting as follows:

The budget the governor will release Wednesday backs away from some of the less politically popular proposals in the $141 billion budget plan he released in January, including a proposal to suspend the minimum school-funding guarantee, Proposition 98.

Instead, the budget proposal will include a $1.8 billion increase in funding to schools over 2007-08 levels. Schools still will lose about $4 billion in anticipated revenue because Schwarzenegger’s plan would not include program cost-of-living increases.

This does not necessarily take the 20,000 pink-slipped teachers off the hook. Losing the $4 billion in anticipated COLA revenue will still cause problems for many school districts – and as I indicated above, higher ed is likely to face major cuts anyway even if K-12 is somehow spared the worst. In any case, teachers are being forced to balance the budget on their backs.

Here again Arnold has chosen quick fixes over long-term solutions. California’s educational system was once the envy of the nation. 30 years of tax cuts have reduced CA to nearly the level of Mississippi, and while the January proposals were bad enough, major reinvestment in all levels of public schools are needed for California to ease widening inequality, provide prosperity and jobs, and thrive in the 21st century.

The devil is in the details here, so until we see those, schools don’t seem out of the woods just yet.

Parks: The proposed park closures were always a rather idiotic idea. Although parks should be free of charge, as California’s natural patrimony, it makes far more sense to raise fees than to close parks. Outright closures would have blown an even bigger hole in the parks budget, so this is clearly the more intelligent plan.

Remaining cuts: Even with Arnold’s lottery borrowing scheme there will be $6 billion left in the deficit. Obviously a restoration of the VLF would close that for good, but expect bitter fights over that last $6 billion between Democrats who will want to provide some sensible ways to close the gap with new revenues, and Republicans – Arnold included – who will prefer destructive cuts to sensible tax solutions.

Overall the May Revise doesn’t appear to be the cataclysm that some expected, but even if Arnold’s lottery plan is embraced – which is far from certain – the basic issues remain, and we’re likely to be debating this well into the fall.

The first major change in the May Revise budget has leaked to the SacBee – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to release 20,000 low-risk offenders from prison has been dropped in the face of legislative opposition:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dumped his plan to release about 22,000 lower-risk inmates from prison before they complete their terms, The Bee learned Monday.

The revised budget he will present on Wednesday will jettison the plan, which would have freed prisoners doing time for crimes such as drug possession and car theft who had less than 20 months to go on their terms.

The governor had sought the change as part of a 10 percent, across-the-board general fund budget cut to deal with a multibillion-dollar deficit.

His plan was unlikely, however, to win support in upcoming budget negotiations. Not a single legislator in the state had expressed support for the idea.

It’s unfortunate that this plan is being dropped, as most of these inmates targeted for release are not particularly violent offenders. California’s prison population has grown too large for us to handle capably or safely, and the cuts were one of the low-hanging fruit in finding savings within the current budget.

Obviously this raises the question of what cuts will be proposed in tomorrow’s budget revise. If Arnold is willing to abandon the early release plan is it too much to hope that he’s going to abandon the destructive schools cuts too? Yeah, probably is. Those cuts will likely remain, and are probably going to be augmented by other damaging cuts to core public services, especially as Arnold’s now got to find $1.2 billion in the budget that was otherwise going to have been saved by the early release.

The other major question surrounding the May Revise is what, if any, new revenues Arnold will propose. I don’t hold out much hope that Arnold is going to propose major new revenues, as his Republican predecessors Pete Wilson and Ronald Reagan did. That’s not Arnold’s style. There may be a few revenue solutions here, but they will likely be small in proportion to the much larger cuts that he is going to insist upon.

Democrats have a short amount of time now to make their case to the public. New Speaker Karen Bass understands that the budget is her top priority – let’s hope she will be able to provide the budget leadership that has been sorely lacking from Democrats these last 30 years.

California higher education has not been having a good decade. When Arnold first took office a series of major cuts were made to the UC, CSU, and community college budgets. In 2004 a compact was agreed to between the UC and CSU leaders and Arnold, guaranteeing a stable, if low, level of funding. That agreement has been heavily criticized for having accepted a lower standard of state support – and that criticism looks to be merited, as Arnold now proposes to violate that agreement with his 10% cut of higher ed funding.

As a new study by the Campaign for College Opportunity shows, the proposed cuts would have the effect of severely curtailing enrollment by as much as 27,000 over the next two years, which is the size of an average UC or CSU undergraduate campus enrollment. And a study by the UC Academic Senate  found that “to maintain educational quality” student fees would have to rise from $7,500 to $10,500 – a staggering increase from an already high level.

“The Schwarzenegger revision accelerates the redefinition of the University of California away from a public university and toward a ‘public-private partnership,’ ” the UC study said. “The university becomes dependent on high student fees for delivering its core educational mission. . . . The university becomes quasi-private or poor — or perhaps both at once.”

UC has been suffering for years from what the Academic Senate study called a “hollowing out” because of lack of money. “From a distance, all appears normal; once one goes inside, the damage is clear,” it said. Leaky roofs go unrepaired; valuable faculty leave for better-paying universities…

The problem of “faculty brain drain” from public to private institutions is a serious one across the country but is hitting UC and CSU the hardest, as their funding has been the most dramatically impacted.

The study and the cuts were the subject of an article in today’s LA Times which contained some quotes from higher ed leaders about the impact of these cuts:

Diane Woodruff, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, said the governor’s proposed cut would mean those campuses would not be able to provide classes for more than 50,000 students. An additional 18,500 would not receive financial aid.

The cutbacks would most affect low-income, first-generation and nonwhite students, who generally depend more on university services, she said…

“By 2025. if we continue on this same course of cumulative budget cuts on a cyclical basis, the California workforce will be 3 million short and California will not be competitive,” Cal State Chancellor [Charles] Reed said.

In other words, Arnold’s proposed 10% cut of higher education would have a crippling effect on California’s economy. The student fees increases would squeeze middle-class families even more dramatically, and would be difficult for young students to pay – especially as student loan availability is shrinking due to the credit cruch – even the notorious Sallie Mae claimed “we’re at the cusp of peak lending.”

But this is sadly part of a larger pattern for Arnold and his Republican allies. Don’t let their occasional bickering and infighting fool you – they stand shoulder to shoulder when it comes to this state’s future. They all agree that our economy and the middle- and working-classes should be sacrificed for the sake of a few wealthy Californians who don’t want to pay more taxes. They agree that to save voters $150 a year in vehicle license fees, public education – from kindergarten to undergraduate – should be destroyed.

The article notes that “Despite the dire situation the universities and community colleges find themselves in, education leaders have been reluctant to challenge the governor.” It looks like that task is going to fall to the students who, abandoned by their schools’ administrators, are launching a statewide protest on Monday, April 21 to oppose these cuts.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has a post at the California Progress Report on the declining number of students in teacher credential programs in California:

Since 2001-02, the state has reduced the number of underprepared teachers in the classroom by 25,000. California, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning reported, “…seemed to be on the right track toward building a teacher development system with the capacity to produce an adequate supply of teachers and deliver them to schools where they were needed most.”

So while we’re improving the quality of the teachers in the field, what about the supply of future teachers: those students in college today who are considering teaching as a profession? Unfortunately, the picture isn’t so bright….

For example, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning recently looked at the number of enrollees in teacher preparation programs since the state’s last fiscal crisis in 2003. The Center reports the following: “During the 2002-03 school year, colleges enrolled 74,203 candidates in preparation programs. The next year, that number dropped to 67,595 and the following year (2004-05) the numbers declined further to 64,753, a loss of 10,000 teacher candidates in two years. Similarly, the numbers of teaching credentials awarded dropped from 27,000 in 2004 to 22,400 in 2006.”

O’Connell could be a bit clearer here on the causes of the decline. As a result of the last budget crisis, the CSU system – which handles the bulk of teacher training in California – was hit with hundreds of millions of budget cuts, and a significant increase in student fees for professional education programs. Most students entering these programs already carry significant debt loads from their undergraduate years, and the stagnant pay for California’s teachers often makes it difficult for young people to repay these loans – especially when you add in our state’s high cost of living.

O’Connell does an excellent job of explaining how the current education budget cuts might dissuade future teachers:

This year California once again faces a budget crisis with potential cuts to education of $4.8 billion dollars. Undergraduates or those students already in teacher credential programs are thinking twice about their career choice. They are aware of the 14,000 pink slips just sent to teachers to prepare them for potential layoffs. They are well aware of the “last-hired, first-fired” rule and they ask themselves, “Do I want to pursue a career that is so unstable that I will face potential layoffs year after year?”

If we don’t find a way to stabilize our funding to schools, California may soon be facing another crisis: classrooms full of students with no teachers at the head of the class.

This is already beginning to take place. Between myself and my sister, who teaches 5th grade in Orange County, we know nearly a dozen people who are in their first years of teaching or in a credential program. Many of them have expressed regret about entering the teaching profession, especially as they worry about whether or not they’ll have a job this fall. A friend of ours who came to visit on spring break a couple weeks ago, currently a substitute teacher in Santa Ana, told me she was happy she had an accounting background, and said she thought it would be better for her to pursue an accounting degree instead of a teaching credential.

Not only will the teacher firings discourage new teachers from entering the profession, but further higher ed cuts will have the same effect. The CSU system is facing another hundred million dollar budget cut, which will certainly result in higher student fees. Thanks to the global credit crunch, however, it is now becoming much more difficult to take out student loans – meaning even fewer students will be able to pursue the necessary education for a teaching career.

Californians have to ask themselves what they really care about. A state that prefers to fire 20,000 teachers and place teacher training out of the reach of interested young people is not a state that values education. Teachers have already carried much of the burden of public education for the last 30 years. But without more financial support, and without the ability to have a secure career, one of the state’s most valuable professions is in very serious jeopardy.

What began in Alameda last month is now beginning to spread around the state. As their future is taken from them by a Yacht Party determined to protect wealth and aristocracy through crippling education cuts, California students are beginning to fight back. In rallies that are unfolding across the state, they are speaking out for opportunity, for education, for democracy.

And on April 18 and April 21, they are poised to make the loudest statement yet against the destruction of education in California.

More on that below. But first, how is Arnold responding to the crisis in public education? The governor, whose own children attend private schools, made a fundraising visit to St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano yesterday at the request of Mimi Walters, GOP assemblywoman and parent of two St. Margaret’s students. He was met by over 200 protestors who denounced Arnold’s education cuts:

Chanting “Save our schools” and “Shame on you,” about 200 teachers, students and parents from across South County lined the narrow sidewalks in front of a Mexican restaurant Thursday afternoon, protesting Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed education cuts as the governor rolled up for a fundraiser.

Sheriff’s deputies on foot and motorcycle ordered protesters to stay off the private driveway of El Adobe de Capistrano restaurant in the moments leading up to the governor’s 6:15 p.m. arrival. Schwarzenegger entered the downtown San Juan Capistrano eatery through a side entrance and did not address the protesters.

Schwarzenegger’s communications director, Matt David, told reporters the governor “wishes he could be outside with these protesters” and that he applauded their efforts.

“This is the last thing he wants to do,” said David, explaining that the governor hoped to work with lawmakers to find a different solution to the state’s budget crisis. “He understands how important it is to fund education.”

Of course, nobody forced Arnold to propose a $4 billion cut to K-12 funding. And he can reverse those cuts in his May revise. But he will get his chance to join these protestors over the next week, as California students are about to unleash an unprecedented wave of activism to stop Arnold and his attacks on public education.

The tone was set earlier this week at Mission Viejo High School, where 4,000 people rallied to oppose the education cuts:

Tuesday’s rally – one in a series of protests that have been staged on street corners and at Orange County schools in recent weeks – was primarily intended to give students an opportunity voice their views on the budget crisis in front of a microphone. The one-hour event was spearheaded by the Saddleback Valley Inter-Council of Students, a group of 21 student leaders from the district’s five high schools.

“Budget cuts should not punish students and the future of this state,” Kaitlyn Spore, student representative to the district Board of Education and a Mission Viejo High senior, told the crowd. “It is our hope that we can send a strong message to the governor that education must be a priority.”

These protests are about to get much larger. Two coalitions are organizing statewide protest actions next week – K-12 students will rally in Sacramento and across the state on April 18, and college students will do the same on April 21.

The April 18 Day of Action is being called Right to Learn and is organized by Youth Noise, a group that has been working to organize young Californians around a variety of issues. Trey Csar, the coordinator of the Right to Learn Day of Action, told me that their goal is to empower students to become activists, not just on April 18 but over the long-term period. The rallies are designed to mobilize students and build coalitions that can survive over the coming months, especially the summer break.

Right to Learn is modeling itself on the successful Step It Up climate action movement. Crowdsourcing is the driving principle, where students at high schools across the state will initiate activism, plan their own actions, and use the internet to share their experiences with other students across the state.

Alongside the April 18 movement, Students for California is organizing several mass rallies around the state on April 21, centered on a protest march in Sacramento from Raley Field to the State Capitol. There will also be marches in Santa Barbara, LA, Riverside, San Diego, and even Arcata. Josh Franco, who is coordinating the April 21 events, told me that his model is the immigrant rights protests from spring 2006 – a large display of student power, it is hoped, will spark political awareness among other students and show state legislators the depth of public anger at the proposed cuts.

If the Republicans are going to be broken, and if a 2/3 vote for a sane and responsible budget that doesn’t cut education is going to be attained, it will take public activism of this sort. California’s students are not going to take the destruction of their future quietly. Let’s hope their activism next week is a success, and that it is but the beginning of a statewide, mass movement to reverse these cuts.

Today’s LA Times picks up where I left off on Sunday, showing how the proposed budget cuts are sending school districts scrambling to get layoff notices out by the March 15 deadline. Although these notices may not always lead to an actual firing, they do have a destructive effect on teacher morale. Already several of my family and friends who teach K-12 in Orange County have begun dusting off their resumes in anticipation of losing their jobs.

In my post  on Sunday I argued that the cuts, if allowed to happen, would have a reckless and destructive impact on California’s economy. The LA Times article points out that there is another potential catastrophe that these cuts might cause. If teachers are fired and class sizes increase, it is going to be more difficult than ever to meet the unreasonable mandates of the odious No Child Left Behind law.

Rialto Unified has made some recent academic gains, and its superintendent worries that deep cuts could stall progress. The district scored a 661 on California’s latest Academic Performance Index, below the state’s target of 800; the API measures schools and districts on student scores in math, English and other subjects.

While the state API is a different metric than NCLB, if a district is having trouble meeting the API target, it is likely to have trouble meeting the much more onerous NCLB targets. As most educators – and anyone who has been a student – knows, the larger the classes, the more difficult it becomes to learn and achieve.

Among the penalties for missing NCLB targets include “replacing staff” or a takeover by “a private education firm.” Either outcome involves less schools, less local control, less parental involvement, and an even deeper economic hit to thousands of working Californians.

Arnold’s proposed budget cuts could therefore touch off a cascade of events that delivers a crippling blow to our public education system. The always excellent California Budget Project has put together a detailed list of the impact of those cuts, including a district-by-district list of cuts. Most district will lose at minimum $500 per student, with some rural districts going well above $1,000 per student. Those are staggering numbers.

This was supposed to be the year of education. Perhaps it still can be – it can either be the year we saved education, or the year we destroyed it. Sometimes our choices really are that stark.

If every Californian paid an extra $150 a year in vehicle license fees, $6.1 billion would be raised eliminating the proposed budget cuts to health care, parks, and education. If we closed the tax loopholes that LAO Elizabeth Hill identified – as Arnold kinda sorta agreed we should – we would raise $2.5 billion, over half of the $4.4 billion cuts proposed in Arnold’s budget.

Or we could fire thousands of teachers. From today’s Orange County Register:

More than 1,590 teachers could lose their jobs.

Class sizes in hundreds of classrooms might increase from 20 to 30 students.

And one district may shutter a campus altogether.

The county’s 28 school districts are deep in efforts to develop plans to cut about $204 million, or 5 percent, from their operating budgets in the face of a mounting state budget crisis.

They’re preparing for the worst because school districts, which receive about 70 percent of their funding from the state, often have to approve staffing and much of their spending for the next school year long before Sacramento lawmakers finish wrangling over the state budget.

“These could be the most devastating cuts our schools have ever seen,” county Superintendent William Habermehl said. “I don’t know how some of our school districts will be able to survive this and provide the same quality of education.”

This being the OC Register we should not be surprised that the piece claims “locked-in teacher pay raises, restricted state and federal funds and other fixed expenditures” are a big part of the problem, but let’s look at the bigger picture here.

Restoring the VLF would cost an average of $150 per person per year. But the proposed teacher firings would cost nearly 40,000 Californians around $50,000 a year in income, health care, and other important benefits. That’s money that isn’t going to pay mortgages or rents. Money that isn’t keeping a small business afloat, or a big box store’s sales high enough to prevent mass layoffs. As California slides into recession, and with zero job growth to show for 2007, how on earth does it make any sense to deliver such a crippling blow to the state’s economy through firing all these teachers?

Surely it is more sensible to ask Californians to pay an extra $150 a year for the privilege of driving, and to keep the state’s economy afloat and its schools in session, than to privilege a wasteful and reckless tax cut at the expense of the economy.

Of course, there is also the long-term damage to the state through these crippling education cuts. Larger class sizes and fewer classrooms mean fewer students will learn. Fewer students will attend college, fewer will get good jobs or create new businesses and technologies. The state will be set back even further – California will become Mississippi.

All so that people can save $150 a year on their car registration. All so that a handful of wealthy yacht owners can get a tax break. We are constantly told that tax cuts are necessary to keep the state in business – but as the looming collapse of public education should suggest, this is just not so. California’s economy is still living off of the investments made in education in the 1960s and 1970s – but that is beginning to run out.

Even in Republican Orange County, in cities like San Juan Capistrano and Mission Viejo, voters want to ensure that their kids will get a decent education. Parents know full well that firing teachers means their children will not learn. Republicans are talking a hard line, claiming they’re not going to compromise an inch on the budget.

But I think we should ask the parents in south Orange County whether they agree with their Republican representatives that their child’s future is really worth $150 a year.