5.16.00
Califonia's School Quackery

5.15.00
A Critical First Step

5.15.00
Federalists Rejoice

5.15.00
The Real Gun Lobby

5.15.00
Stopping The Triumph of Quotas

5.15.00
Bush's Best Idea

5.15.00
The Madness of Gun Buybacks

5.15.00
Taking Aim At The Constitution

5.12.00
The Great GOP Land Grab

5.12.00
Million Mom March: Much Less than Advertised

5.12.00
New York's New Archbishop

5.11.00
An Ohio Court's Overreach

5.11.00
Hillary's Worst Nightmare

5.11.00
Canada Takes on Dr. Laura

5.11.00
The Death of Outrageousness

5.11.00
The War's Over

5.11.00
Elian On Broadway

5.10.00
O, Brother

5.10.00
E-Freedom!

5.10.00
Gore as Caligula?

5.09.00
Don't Back the Quack

5.08.00
Post-Columbine Syndrome

5.05.00
Buckeye Babylon

5.05.00
Dateline: Vieques, Puerto Rico

5/16/00 10:40 p.m.
California's School Quackery
A payoff for teachers’ unions.

By Arnold Steinberg, political strategist and author

ollowing Sputnik in 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower, proclaiming that engineers were valuable for national security, proposed federal funding to educate them. Now California Gov. Gray Davis, citing Eisenhower as his inspiration, observes: "There's no profession more valuable to America's economic and national security than teaching." So Davis proposes to exempt "all" K-12 teachers from paying the California state income tax on their public-school salaries.

Rewind. The California Teachers Association (CTA) spent over $2 million to elect Davis. Then he irritated the union with his lukewarm support of Proposition 26, the March ballot measure that would have allowed a 51% majority of voters, rather than two-thirds, suffice to approve local property-tax hikes for school construction. After Proposition 26 narrowly lost, principally due to the relatively conservative primary electorate, Davis agreed to back the November ballot's Proposition 26 Lite, which would require a 55% vote to approve the tax hikes. One big change, Pete Wilson style: Davis will control the campaign, with his favored vendors getting the money.

In what looks like a continued quid pro quo, just one day after 8,000 teachers from central casting staged a demonstration for more money, Gov. Davis and Democratic leaders agreed to shift nearly $2 billion to local schools, primarily for pay hikes. Conveniently, the CTA then dropped plans to place another initiative on the November ballot that would have required the state to increase per capita education spending to the national average. This makes it much easier for Davis, Gore, et. al. to unify behind the remaining two educational measures on the ballot: Yes on 26, No on Vouchers.

Conservatives remain apprehensive about the potentially big-spending school choice/vouchers measure, which inexplicably lacks strategists experienced in nuanced political advertising. A major defeat could hurt the school choice movement and could lose California for George W. On the other hand, it if wins, or loses modestly, it could help him.

Meanwhile, Davis, reassuring Republicans who felt he was invincible for 2002, has made a fool of himself with his preposterous proposal to exempt teachers from state taxes. Among Democrats, Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg says it lacks "trajectory", and Senate Leader John Burton says, "Why not firefighters? Cops? Social workers?" Republican Assembly Leader Scott Baug calls it a "political payoff."

Consider how stupid the proposal is. It not only strikes most Californians as unfair, allowing teachers to shirk part of the civic responsibilities they are supposed to teach. If passed, it would set a precedent to be exploited by other government-employee unions. Moreover, its effective benefit to teachers is exaggerated, because most teachers (part of two-income households that itemize deductions, including state income taxes) consequently would pay higher Federal taxes. Worse, this special-interest exemption would apply only to public school teachers, not to private-school teachers!

All of which begs the question of what California will do with a surplus that could top $13 billion. Will these taxpayer funds become a goodie bag for Davis to repay campaign supporters? It's hard for Republicans to attack such ethics, since they ineptly remain silent about Republican Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush's diversion of public funds to promote his own political fortunes. (Indeed, documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show Quack created a system to divert the money to his political vendors.)

In the end, Davis is proposing limited tax cuts. But is he in a polemical strait jacket? How can he campaign for Prop 26 Lite, to make it easier for local property-tax hikes for schools, when the state is sitting on $13 billion? And, where is the Republican leadership on these issues?

Columns / Current Issue / Goldberg File / Nota Bene
Washington Bulletin / Subscribe / Ad Info / Home