10/05/2012 - Myclipp

Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Qua, 16 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
Ready to blaze a trail for tax hike
In March, when I wrote that the tax increase proposals
by Gov. Jerry Brown and civil rights attorney Molly
Munger were unimaginative if not doomed, I got an
email from Munger.
She did not agree, at least with regard to her initiative.
Also Brown stymied by same budget dysfunction that
plagued predecessors Jerry Brown's plea to voters:
'Please increase taxes temporarily' High-speed
spending: Bullet train may need $3.5 million a day
"Unimaginative?" she wrote, inviting me to meet with
her.
This week, I decided to take her up on her offer after
watching Brown admit that the financial mess he told
us about in January was nothing compared to the
mess we're in now. Frankly, I don't know how the
January estimates were so far off the mark, with a
$9-billion hole turning into a $16-billion hole in less
time than it takes to grow tomatoes. Why should we
trust the next set of numbers Brown throws at us?
The governor's latest proposal is for $11 billion in cuts,
and they would come with a warning that if we don't
pass his temporary sales and income tax hike in
November — which would raise as much as $6 billion
— the suffering will intensify and public schools will be
hit even harder.
Look, I know this mess isn't Brown's fault, but I'm
getting tired of his threats and his shortsighted "fixes."
It's like having the foundation of your house flooded by
a broken water main, and the plumber suggests you
spend $75 to fix the leaky bathtub faucet.
And as Munger points out, even if the public backs
Brown's plan, schools are still going to be in big, big
trouble.
"We're bleeding, and it's a tiny Band-Aid," she said
when we met Monday afternoon at Buster's in South
Pasadena, not far from where she lives.
Her plan would raise $10 billion a year by increasing
income taxes on a sliding scale, all of it to retire school
bonds and support education.
Brown on the other hand would temporarily raise
income taxes on the wealthy and sales taxes on
everyone, but only some of it would go to schools and
the rest to various other services.
Does either have a chance?
I'm not terribly optimistic, but for all the parrots out
there who do nothing but chirp about how California
has a spending rather than a revenue problem, the fact
is that Brown's proposed $91-billion general fund
budget would be roughly 10% smaller than the budget
just five years ago. And as my colleague George
Skelton has pointed out, general fund spending per
$100 of income is lower today than it was in Ronald
Reagan's last year as governor.
So it's at least possible that Californians would be
willing to bite the bullet and raise taxes on themselves
if they thought schools would benefit. But which bullet?
It's hard to believe that having two proposals on the
ballot won't lower the odds of either one passing.
Munger told me she and Brown have chatted, and the
governor "talked about how campaigns can get very
tough."
Whoa! Was the governor threatening her to back off
and clear the way for him or he'd wage a nasty
campaign against her?
Munger keeps her cards close. She wouldn't answer
me directly, but said rather than one of them backing
off, or waging a kickboxing competition, she'd rather
see a scenario in which she supports the governor's
proposal and he supports hers. Even though if his got
more votes, hers would be null and void.
And?
"He was noncommital, in a cordial way," Munger said.
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and bet my
house, my car and two or three of my children that
Californians will not support two proposals calling for
new taxes unless everyone is either drugged or taken
to a polling place at gunpoint.
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