Education proposal would challenge Brown on the ballot
By Torey Van Oot, Sacramento Bee
When Molly Munger’s name surfaced last year as a potential partner on efforts to provide more funding for schools, California State PTA President Carol Kocivar had to turn to Google to find out who she was.
While Munger is a longtime champion for civil rights and education policy issues, the 63-year-old attorney was a virtual unknown in California political circles.
That changed the moment she submitted a $10 billion tax proposal for the ballot.
Munger’s proposed initiative to raise state income taxes for all but the poorest Californians to fund schools and early childhood development programs – and the personal cash she has pledged to spend to put it on the ballot – makes her a major player in the 2012 ballot wars and a thorn in Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s side.
Her measure, one of at least three tax proposals that could qualify for November’s ballot, is seen as a threat to the one Brown is pushing. His would generate nearly $7 billion in budget relief by raising income taxes on high earners and enacting a half-cent increase in the sales tax.
Brown and his allies have called for proponents of rival tax initiatives to drop their efforts, arguing that a ballot featuring multiple tax hikes will lead voters to reject them all.
The argument hasn’t moved Munger, a Democrat and Pasadena resident, who says her polling shows a tax hike earmarked for schools can win even with other tax measures on the ballot.
“We think the governor doesn’t have as good of an idea this year as we do,” Munger told reporters this week. “And that’s part of democracy, to put that out in the marketplace of ideas and let the voters decide.”
No problem hitting up the very rich for
a little more tax money but don’t waste it on the bloated, feather bedded K-12
semi-education system. Money can’t buy happiness, neither can it buy learning without the students cooperation. Let’s get back to basics not bananas.
“Munger’s proposed initiative to raise state income taxes for all but the poorest Californians to fund schools and early childhood development programs”
Great idea. Tax the citizens some more. We’re not taxed enough. Some of us can still afford groceries.
Lack of funding is NOT what’s wrong with our state’s education system. It’s the system itself. And between the high taxes and the poor, dangerous schools, more and more of the productive citizens the state would like to keep, will LEAVE.
Investing in education is soooo not worth it. Kids don’t need to be smart. When they get smart, they ask questions, and are more difficult to control.
Dogwoman, I’ve got to believe that those in our society that can’t afford groceries probably don’t suffer from being over taxed due to the fact that they most probably don’t fall into a tax bracket that even pay taxes. And those that can’t buy groceries because of having to bear too large a tax burden are possibly living beyond their means.
We the wealthy, in order to form a more perfect cash flow, increase profits, insure reduction of taxes, provide for a defenseless labor force, promote financial inequality, and secure the blessings of profit for Ourselves and Our posterity, do ordain and establish this Republican Party for the United States of America. …Amen.
If they can’t teach the kids how to read while spending over $11K per pupil (’09, the most recent stats available), how much more would YOU recommend we spend of other people’s money to accomplish it?
For starters, I would recommend spending 1/2 the money saved from ending the obscene bush tax cuts for those w/incomes over 250K for hiring teachers and rebuilding school infrastructure. The “other people’s money” you speak of is actually Our money for the commons, like education, that has been systematically shifted from the middle class to the bloated/porcine 1%ers. If you’re not making mid 6 figures+ and you vote GOP, you’re being made a fool of.
Ah. Always practical, Smudgely. The “Bush tax cuts” are Federal. California school spending is, well, STATE.
Still don’t get why you seem to think that the “bloated/porcine 1%ers” owe you or me or anybody else ANYTHING more. They already pay most of the taxes in this country.
You sound greedy to me.
Federal spending on Education is well over 50 billion/per year. That is, well, NOT state.
50 BILLION a year and it’s STILL not enough for you.
It won’t be enough for you till we’re ALL equally broke.
And the kids still won’t be able to read.