By Ramona Ripston, Executive Director, ACLU of Southern California

The California Supreme Court has just ‘sentenced’ our state’s taxpayers to an additional debt of at least $180,000 more per year. How? The state’s high court upheld the death penalty in two cases.

Imposing the death penalty adds enormously to the cost of prosecution and permanent lifetime housing for an inmate. The death penalty is certainly a polarizing public policy issue, but I wonder how many people realize that it’s also a vortex-like drain on their own pocketbooks.

Whether you’re for or against the death penalty, you are paying for it. Here are the staggering numbers, from a report by the ACLU of Northern California:

• $90,000 a year: taxpayers’ extra cost of holding one inmate on death row, over and above the cost of keeping an inmate in the general prison population
• $10.9 million: taxpayers’ cost of one death penalty trial, based on the records of a sample of trials
• $117 million a year: taxpayers’ cost of seeking execution, after conviction, for inmates throughout the state

Altogether, Californians spend as much per year in pursuit of executions as the salaries of more than 2,500 experienced teachers, or 2,250 new California Highway Patrol officers.

Why are we putting our cash-strapped state and county governments, and ourselves, through this? The ACLU of Northern California’s county-by-county comparison, Death by Geography, found that counties that sentencing people to death do not experience lower homicide rates or raise rates of solving homicides.

Instead of California cutting $50 million from the fund for victims of violent crime, as the legislature and governor did last year, the ACLU California affiliates suggest the state cut its expensive death penalty. Instead of cutting programs emphasizing education, rehabilitation and addiction treatment, cut the death penalty. The state would save $1 billion over five years without releasing a single prisoner, including $400 million that would be saved by eliminating a new facility planned for death row inmates. Thousands of budget-minded Californians have joined our CUT THIS campaign.

As I testified to the Californian Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice in 2008: "California’s death penalty system is arbitrary, biased, expensive and susceptible to fatal error. It cannot be fixed. It should not be tinkered with. It should be ended."

(In order for the states to have any real power to impliment innovative reforms on health care post-reform, we need this amendment included. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Tell Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi and your own Congressional rep to vote for health reform ONLY if the state option is included.

The state option is NOT the public option. The state option (less confusingly known as a state waiver) will help California fold existing health plans into the SB 810 single payer insurance pool. Dennis Kucinich has introduced a state waiver amendment that has passed the House Committee on Education and Labor. No matter what national health reform bill finally emerges from Congress, California must have that state waiver.

Why? The reason goes beyond even providing guaranteed affordable health care for every Californian. Health care costs are are the single biggest reason for California’s fiscal collapse.  In 10 years, if nothing is done, health care are will gobble up half the state budget. California needs to control health care costs fast, which is impossible under any reform that keeps the predatory for-profit insurance industry in the driver’s seat. Only a single payer system can do it. SB 810 will save millions of dollars for cities, counties and special districts all over the state. It will save the state billions.

Single payer activists have developed a simple formula that any public entity can use to calculate health care savings under SB 810.  Santa Monica crunched the numbers and found it would save $6 million.  Savings for the East Side Union High School District, one of the largest high school districts in the state, would total $10.4 million. Two years ago AC Transit learned that under SB 810’s predecessor bill SB 840 the transit district would have saved over 70% of the costs of providing health care to its employees.

With savings like these, local governments, school districts, transit authorities, parks and water districts should descend on Sacramento in fury, demanding the passage and signing of SB 810.

California has twice passed single payer and Schwarzenegger twice vetoed it. SB 810 is currently in the Legislature’s suspense file but author Mark Leno will revive it in January. We expect the Legislature to pass it again. With a Democratic governor to sign it, we may be the first state to implement the only kind of health care reform that covers everyone, guarantees choice of doctor and saves real money.

Join the California Nurses, the California School Employees Association, Healthcare for All California, the California Alliance for Retired Americans and a host of single payer advocates around the state. Lobby for the state waiver. Call Congress on Monday. Tell them to support the Kucinich amendment. The progressives have been slow to pay attention to the need for the waiver. Help us wake them up.

And while you’re at it, ask them all to vote yes when HR 676 comes up for a House floor vote. Pelosi’s promise of an up or down floor vote is historic – the first time a single payer/Medicare for All health care bill has ever been voted on by either house of Congress.  

(Rather scary stuff… – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

First, the glimmer of good news: after wasting $3B because they couldn’t come to an agreement by June 30…giving a secret $2B tax credit to Cal’s largest corporations in the middle of a budget crisis…issuing IOUs and seeing the state’s credit rating plummet…after banks stopped accepting IOUs because California’s money is no good…finally, the Governator and legislators met again yesterday to express optimism.

The bad news: it’s fire season, and vendors for the state Department of Forestry & Fires (CalFire) are refusing to do business with the state.  On an economic blog:

I work in the aircraft repair/parts industry in California and thought I’d let you onto something. Many vendors to the CDF (California division of forestry) air operations have outstanding bills going back to last year. My company just put all California agencies on cash or credit card only. Many others are refusing to sell to the CDF because of huge amount of unpaid and late bills. We don’t even get Registered Warrants!

Mish, this is scary. I know of one company that is doing repairs knowing they won’t get paid just because they do not want to see fire fighting aircraft grounded

This week in California, where the southern part of the state has been sunny, hot, and dry, the northern part is the same but with dry lightning strikes in foothills, and fire season runs from July 1 to June 30:

7/11/09, a 30 acre brush fire in Antelope Valley threatened homes before being contained.

7/11, a a 200 acre brush fire in Los Padres National Forest heads toward the wilderness boundary, as all air tankers in Southern California are committed to incidents at this time (boldface in original).

7/8/09, an 80 acre brush fire near the Getty Museum caused the museum and Mt. St. Mary’s college to be evacuated.

7/7/09, the Backbone Fire broke out in a rugged part of Siskiyou County.  As of 10 AM on 7/11, it’s 25% contained after burning over 5500 acres.

Also on 7/7/09, the Elm Fire burned 270 acres in Riverside County before being fully contained.

And, of course, lots of tiny fires have been lit in one smoking tent near the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento, where smoking is not allowed indoors.  The tent is “about 15 feet square, carpeted with artificial turf and outfitted with stylish furniture, an iPod, a video-conferencing terminal, trays of almonds, a chess table, a refrigerator and a large photo of the governor.” In it, the Governator himself declares to a NYTimes interviewer that he’s

“perfectly fine,” despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie.”

The state has asked its contractors and suppliers to cut back 15%.  Food service contractors, who typically claim a 2-3% profit margin, are being asked to cut 15%, reports the WSJ.  And you wonder why no one wants to work with the state fire department?

This weekend, California leaders report that they’re making progress:

Bass, who walked out of negotiations earlier in the week, said Saturday that her concerns have been addressed and that there did not appear to be any insurmountable obstacles to reaching a deal. She described the talks as complicated.

“I think what has happened over the last 48 hours has been the most productive in the last several weeks,” the Los Angeles Democrat said. “We are just not finished.”

Of course, Bass doesn’t tell reporters that they’re making progress at the expense of suspending Proposition 98, which guarantees that 40% of all general education revenue go to education.  The Sacramento Bee reports that Arnold’s hostile suspension has rocked the state Capitol.  The California Teachers Association and SEIU are both gearing up for fights.

Yet, if a cruel budget is not passed, October will be crueler still.  The IOUs are only going to some creditors — generally, the have-nots, while the haves get paid in cash.  By October, the state will run completely out of cash, the IOUs will (allegedly) be redeemable, and the Santa Ana winds will blow.  

Note: I originally posted this at DailyKos, where I know how to use links.

The sole legitimate reason for opposition to federal aid to help “donor nation” California to deal with its budget crisis is that by rewarding failure and will invite all sorts of other states to line up for similar largesse.  Governor Palin is among those who have raised the prospect of such a perverse incentive.

I think that I can solve that problem (and I know this isn’t a new solution):

As a condition of aid, the Obama Administration should require Governor Schwarzenegger to resign.

To be fair, the Feds should probably also require Speaker Bass and Senator Steinberg to resign from their leadership positions, although I say that with regret, as I have little real animus towards them for their desperate attempts to deal with the current situation.  That just may be what’s required to make things look “unbiased.”

They should also require California to take serious steps to resolve its budget crisis, including requiring a a simple majority budget and a constitutional convention to address the question of taxation.  Money should be deployed in such a way that the greatest benefit comes only when the strategic solutions are implemented by voter approval.

Take that sort of hard-nosed, pragmatic line — punishing failure and demanding real reform — and I promise you that the line of other states seeking to follow suit will be very, very short.

So, with that objection out of the way, I renew my call for federal assistance to this state before, to liken economics to the fate of the Pequod, we drag all surrounding boats into the salty deep in our wake.

I’m willing to see Arnold resign as a condition of saving our economy.  Is he?

(I want to welcome SF’s District Attorney Kamala Harris. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

States across our country are facing budget deficits. California is projected to begin next fiscal year with a deficit of nearly 25 billion dollars, equaling one fourth of the state’s entire general fund. Over 10 billion of that general fund supports corrections and law enforcement. In this fiscal crisis, there is no denying the facts: tough budget times are here for public safety agencies. As the District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, I am personally familiar with the difficult circumstances we face. Without a significant shift in local and state practices, we can predict that shrinking law enforcement and corrections funding will result in higher crime rates, less support for victims, and fewer offenders being held accountable. If ever there was a time to think outside the box and break with the failed approaches of the past, the time is now. We need to do something different.

In San Francisco, I have developed a smart on crime approach: we must be tough on serious and violent offenders while we get just as tough on the root causes of crime. In my office, we have raised felony conviction rates and sent more violent offenders to state prison, at the same time we have launched innovative, cost effective approaches to reduce recidivism, truancy, and childhood trauma. With a genuine investment in breaking cycles of crime, we can improve public safety at the same time that we save precious public resources.

EDIT by Brian: See the flip

Reentry: Why it Matters to Law Enforcement

Over the last thirty years, our prison population has soared. In 1980, California had a prison population of about 24,000 in a state of 24 million. Today we have an inmate population of 172,000 out of 36 million people. This means that since 1980, our population has grown by 50 % while our prison population has grown 617%.

Today, the majority of those inmates are not first-time offenders. Each year, approximately 70 percent of those released from California prisons commit another offense, resulting in the highest recidivism rate in the nation. These repeat offenses are preventable crimes that claim more victims and harm communities’ quality of life. It costs an estimated $10,000 to prosecute just one felony case, and about $47,000 per year to house just one inmate in prison. Every time an inmate is released and commits a new crime, local and state jurisdictions pay those costs over and over again.  To keep our communities safe and use public money wisely, we must ensure that people coming out of the criminal justice system become productive citizens and stay out.

Four years ago my office pioneered a model reentry initiative called "Back on Track" to reduce recidivism among nonviolent offenders. Back on Track combines accountability with opportunity to ensure that first-time nonviolent drug offenders are held accountable, stop committing crime and become self-sufficient. In Back on Track, offenders plead guilty and commit to strict court supervision as they complete an intensive personal responsibility program. They get trained for a job, go back to school, get current with child support, enroll in parenting classes, and become positive contributors in their communities. The program encompasses swift sanctions for making bad choices and clear incentives for good ones. As a result, less than 10 percent of Back on Track graduates have re-offended compared to a 54 percent recidivism rate statewide for the same population of offenders. We have achieved this success at a fraction of the cost of traditional corrections approaches. Back on Track costs about $5,000 annually per participant, compared to $35,000 to 47,000 for jail or prison.

To graduate, Back on Track participants must be employed or in school. The program has been selected as a national model by the National District Attorney’s Association and at least two jurisdictions have replicated the initiative. Back on Track demonstrates that preventing recidivism is both viable and cost-effective.

Truancy: Keeping Children in School Means Keeping Our Streets Safe

In 2007, after another year of high homicide rates in San Francisco, I asked my staff to review the victims’ histories to assess trends. We found that over the prior four years, 94% of homicide victims under the age of 25 were high school drop outs. We then reviewed SF public schools data and found that over 5,000 students were habitually or chronically truant each year, and nearly half of those kids were in elementary school. These are the kids on route to becoming high school drop outs.

In response, I joined with the San Francisco Unified School District to launch a citywide truancy initiative focused on getting elementary and middle school kids back in school. As the city’s chief prosecutor, I sent every parent in the district a letter explaining that I was prepared to prosecute parents if they broke the law by keeping their children out of school. I was surprised to discover that many parents didn’t know that California law makes education mandatory for children under the age of 18. Thousands of parents attended informational meetings on truancy after receiving the letter, and we fielded hundreds of calls from parents who had questions or needed help.

We also held face-to-face "D.A. Mediation" meetings with over 2,000 parents. Suddenly, the principals didn’t need to work so hard to convince parents to take seriously the consequences of keeping their child from school because a prosecutor was in the room. Through these mediations, we met parents in need of help to get their kids in school. One mother of three, for example, was homeless and holding down two jobs. We connected her to services so she could do what she wanted to do – be a good mother and put her children in school.

Mediations resulted in significant progress for most of the parents. Still, some continued to fail. In these cases, my office filed criminal charges. The children of these parents, some as young as six years old, had missed as many as 80 days of school out of a 180 day school year. Once we filed criminal charges, things started to change. Those parents report to a Truancy Court that combines consequences and support services to make sure that parents get their children in school.

Since we started this initiative, truancy rates for elementary school kids in San Francisco have dropped by 23 percent. And it did not take millions of dollars, bureaucratic red tape, or a decade to see results. It only took genuine commitment and a willingness to shake up the status quo.

What starts out as chronic truancy makes a child far more likely to end up dropping out of school, becoming a victim, or getting arrested. Taking swift corrective action now will reduce the likelihood of harmful and costly consequences later.

Childhood Trauma: Breaking the Silence to Help Children and Youth  

Last year in San Francisco, a teenage boy was gunned down while waiting outside a school for a ride. His senseless murder was witnessed by dozens of young students who were outside at the time. Months later, many of these youth had not accessed mental health support to recover from what they saw. Worse still, for some, it was likely not the first time they had witnessed violence. Some young people come from homes where violence is the norm, while others see violence in their neighborhoods far too frequently. The impact of repeated exposure to violence on children is enormous: they can’t concentrate in school, they’re detached, or they act-up and misbehave.

Like soldiers at war, children are highly likely to suffer from trauma from repeated exposure to violence. And like soldiers coming home, they often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Unfortunately, many of these children go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed and thereby not treated appropriately. Worse still, children repeatedly traumatized by violence at an early age are more likely to fall through the cracks and become either victims or perpetrators of violence later in life.

Studies have shown that up to 35 percent of children and youth exposed to community violence develop PTSD. Exposure to community violence affects everything from a child’s sleep, to their school success, to the physical development of their brains.

In the District Attorney’s Office, we often see the needs of children from distressed families or neighborhoods go untreated. To address these unmet needs, last year we joined with California State Senator Mark Leno to craft ground-breaking legislation to provide funding for mental health counseling for traumatized children and youth. Signed into law last year, our bill allows children who witness community violence to access up to $5,000 for therapy and mental health support.

When we look at children growing up in tough environments, we need to see them through a prism instead of a plate glass window. Left unaddressed, their complex and difficult surroundings can overwhelm their minds and harm their chances for future success. If we can recognize their needs and get timely help, we can substantially increase life prospects for these children before it’s too late.

What Needs to Happen Can Happen

These are just a few examples of what can be done to improve public safety and break the cycle of crime. Being smart on crime requires changing our thinking. Albert Einstein once said, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." The State of California is at an economic crossroads that demands new approaches. I am confident that we can meet that demand through a long-term strategy of responsive, preventative and evidence-based "smart on crime" approaches, thereby ensuring a better and safer future for all of us.

This post was initially published at ACSblog: http://www.acslaw.org/node/13582

Right now, the number one job of every public official, including state legislators and the governor, our representatives in Congress and our new President, is to revitalize our economy and put our people to work.  Here in California, that means promptly passing a budget that solves our state’s budget crisis, stimulates the economy and creates jobs.  We’re facing a $40 billion budget shortfall and the real possibility of insolvency within a month or two if we don’t get a budget in place.  With 9.3% of Californians unemployed and many more struggling, nothing should get in the way of helping get California’s economy back on track.   Any distraction from solving our budget crisis is a dereliction of duty.

Unfortunately, the Governor Schwarzenegger is stalling a solution to the budget crisis by pushing legislative leaders to accept unrelated and potentially dangerous measures to privatize vital infrastructure projects.  For instance, California, like most states, funds infrastructure through the low-cost, tax-exempt municipal bond market, where private investors’ money helps build schools, roads, flood-control and other necessary projects while paying those investors a fair rate of return.  

Now the governor wants to force the Legislature to experiment with a dangerous scheme for private firms to raise the money for transportation projects, only to be paid back later by Californians, undoubtedly with quite a bit of profit.  So instead of a low-cost, tax-exempt way of raising the money, the governor is pushing to spend more of your money to profit of private investors.  Doesn’t make sense, does it?  The U.S. Government Accountability office recently reviewed the deceptively-named public-private partnerships and concluded: “While private investors can make billions of dollars available for critical infrastructure, these funds are largely a new source of borrowed funds, repaid by road users over what potentially could be a period of several generations.  There is no “free” money in highway public-private partnerships.”

That approach may be a dream come true for ideologues who want to privatize our vital public services, and it may be easy for those politicians who want to pretend that they are not raising taxes.  But sooner or later we’re going to have to pay for the roads, schools and other infrastructure that our state needs and the public-private partnership proposals mean we’ll pay more in the long run as those private contractors seek profit from the deal.  That has been demonstrated across California.  The price tag for San Diego’s public-private partnership toll road (State Route 125) went from $360 million to $843 million by the time it opened a year late in 2007; the cost overruns will be paid by Californians with ten years of additional toll costs.

The governor also wants to be able to outsource vital public services in packages that won’t necessarily generate or save any money to address California’s budget problems.  The so called design-build proposal would effectively eliminate competitive bidding on construction contracts and might compromise quality in vital infrastructure.  That scheme has increased costs to California taxpayers: in four design-build projects, $2.2 billion has been wasted without expediting project completion.  For example, Orange County’s State Route 22 ballooned from a cost of $271 million to over $600 million after becoming a design-build project.  Why does the governor want to spend more of our money while potentially risking quality?

These ideas have been defeated in the Legislature because they just don’t work and they just don’t serve California.  California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer wrote in January in the Sacramento Bee “In fact, the single-minded drive to gin up a gold rush by increasing private companies’ share of the public infrastructure market has helped push California closer to fiscal calamity.”

Now, for whatever reason, the governor is delaying steps toward economic recovery and job creation by trying to push these failed schemes to privatize state government functions as part of the resolution to our budget crisis.  You and I know there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  But by pushing these schemes, Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to pretend that there is.

After decades of state and local government experiments with contracting out, the benefits of private delivery of our vital public services have proven to be elusive.  Contracting out often results in higher costs, poorer service, increased opportunities for corruption and diminished government flexibility, control and accountability.  Governor Schwarzenegger’s privatization schemes offer more of the same for California – more risks with little promise of benefit.

Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to push a bad idea on the state.  It’s bad for California’s economy, bad for our infrastructure, and bad for Californians’ pocketbooks.  These risky privatization schemes won’t stimulate California’s economy.  They may well cost California jobs.  Even more importantly, this is a distraction from the important work we need to be doing in Sacramento to fix what’s wrong with our state.  And with our floundering economy and budget crisis, that’s something we can’t afford. And as long as he keeps trying to shoehorn them into the budget bill, Governor Schwarzenegger is delaying the important resolution of the state’s budget crisis that will stimulate the economy and create jobs.  It’s time for the governor to be constructive by agreeing to a reasonable budget without irrelevant extras.

————-

Willie L. Pelote, Sr. is an Assistant Director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO.  AFSCME is the largest public sector union in the country representing 1.4 million members nationwide.

From today’s Beyond Chron.

Because Governor Schwarzenegger is impotent at brokering a budget, the state will be out of money on February 1st – and will start issuing I.O.U.’s.  That means no tax rebates, no financial aid and no other means of assistance.  Now we are looking at a statewide special election to get out of this mess.  If all we get is more Arnold gimmicks to delay the problem another year, it will be a tragically wasted opportunity.  Because now, more than ever, the public is willing to consider tax reform to get us out of the right wing fiscal straitjacket.  Beyond the Democrats’ effort to scrap the archaic two-thirds budget rule, legislators must consider placing ballot measures to amend Prop 13 (by exempting commercial property) – and eliminate Prop 218’s onerous requirement that local revenue measures get a two-thirds vote by the electorate.  With the recession wreaking havoc on our fiscal health, the public has finally woken up to the horror of right-wing tax policy.  For the first – and possibly only – time, voters might approve progressive ways to raise revenue.

Scrapping the Two-Thirds Budget Rule

Liberal bloggers were ecstatic yesterday to report that a new PPIC poll shows a majority of Californians would abolish the two-thirds requirement to pass a state budget.  And they should be.  Despite California being a solid blue state, Republicans in the state legislature from the Central Valley and Orange County have blocked our budget each and every year – because they adamantly refuse to vote for a single tax increase whatsoever in any way, shape or form.  This “tyranny of the minority” has blocked any effort to raise revenue during hard times – forcing the state to make painful cuts and borrow more money.

Specifically, the poll in question showed that a 53-41 majority of likely voters would support lowering the budget vote requirement down to 55%.  The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has been asking this question every year since 2005, and it’s the first time that a majority of voters approved this idea.  As recently as May 2008, the question failed 39-53, with similar poll results in earlier years. Clearly, a seismic shift in public opinion has occurred.

Getting rid of the “two-thirds” rule is a priority for Democrats in the state legislature, who have tried in vain to forestall this crisis.  In a bout of desperation, they finally crafted a manipulation of the tax rules to get around the two-thirds requirement – only to have Schwarzenegger veto it right before Christmas.  If the Governor calls a special election, Democrats have said they will place a Proposition on the ballot to abolish the two-thirds requirement.

But it would be a lost opportunity to stop there …

Local Revenue Raising Reform:

Scrapping the “two-thirds rule” would make it easier to pass a state budget, but it would do nothing to solve the perennial revenue crisis that local governments face – a crisis that comes from state law.  Prop 218, which passed in 1996, requires all special taxes at the local level to get a two-thirds vote of the electorate.  Prop 13 also requires most local tax increases to be on the ballot.  So when San Francisco faces a $576 million deficit, these fiscal straitjackets mean requires us to have an election to raise taxes – which is never an attractive prospect.  

How in the world would Californians give up their power to raise taxes at the local level?  The same PPIC poll asked about lowering the requirement to raise special taxes at the local level from two-thirds to 55% (i.e., amend Prop 218 to make it less draconian.)  A majority (50-44) said it was a “good idea,” but the margin was closer among “likely voters.”  Prop 218 passed thirteen years ago with little fanfare – because progressives were too distracted by trying to save affirmative action (No on 209), raising the minimum wage (Yes on 210) and supporting medical marijuana (Yes on 215.)  Its damage has been catastrophic, but now we have a chance – possibly the only chance ever – to undo it.

Reforming Property Tax Revenue

Would voters also repeal Prop 13?  Don’t be silly.  The 1978 tax measure that castrated property tax revenue – and spawned the Reagan Revolution across the country – is still popular with Californians, especially long-term homeowners who enjoy the stability of capped increases.  But a Field Poll from June 2008 showed they’re open to amending it, and I couldn’t imagine a better time – when public opinion is willing to entertain such measures – to put it on the ballot in the name of rescuing the state.

Prop 13 was billed as saving residential homeowners, but by far its biggest beneficiaries have been corporations who own commercial property.  Because commercial property has much lower turnover, they pay much lower property taxes.  Imagine, for example, how much more revenue the San Francisco public schools would get if just one building – the Transamerica Pyramid – were exempt from Prop 13.  In the same June 2008 poll that showed voters strongly support Prop 13, the idea of “split roll” taxation either got 46-43 support or a whopping 61-27 approval (depending on how the question was asked.)

Progressives like Rob Reiner have been talking about a “split roll” amendment to Prop 13 for years.  Now is the moment to finally pass what folks have been saying for years.

For the June special election, San Francisco may put another parcel tax on the ballot – like they did in June 2008 to raise public school teachers’ salaries.  I voted for Prop A, but was not thrilled that every homeowner got levied $198-per-year, regardless of the size or value of their property.  Which means I will now pay the same amount for my 400 square-foot Tenderloin studio that Dede Wilsey pays for her mansion in Pacific Heights – which is unfair.  I’m not against taxing property owners, but let’s have some equity here.

Guess what?  San Francisco isn’t allowed to pass a “progressive” parcel tax, because Prop 13 requires them to be “flat.”  Rather than repeal Prop 13 entirely, allowing cities to pass parcel taxes that are not regressive sounds like a politically possible solution.

Other Budget Solutions for the Special Election

While structural solutions must be the priority, expect the statewide special election to have a lot of specific revenue measures on the ballot.  Schwarzenegger’s fiscally reckless idea to borrow against future lottery revenues is not popular and would fail, but the PPIC poll showed that his alcohol tax proposal would easily pass – and his regressive temporary sales tax is mildly popular.  What’s most interesting, however, is that raising the vehicle license fee by $12 would pass 61-37 – and even Republican voters support it by a 7-point margin.

If the Governor wants the special election to be about tax measures (most of which are just quick fixes), Democrats must demand a Proposition to raise income taxes for the wealthy.  The PPIC poll showed that idea passing by a 40-point landslide, one of the most popular revenue proposals.  Democrats in the legislature tried restoring the upper-income tax bracket to Reagan-Wilson levels last summer, but with the “two-thirds rule” could not muster its passage.  And the Governor never supported it – although he gladly repealed a $347/year tax credit for low-income seniors with the stroke of a pen.

If we’re going to raise taxes, let’s do it right.  Put a tax measure on the special election ballot to restore the upper-income tax bracket, and see if the voters like that better than Schwarzenegger’s ideas.  With the fiscal crisis devastating our state coffers, it’s time for everyone to sacrifice – but let’s demand that those who can afford to pay give their share.