The 'Utter Truth' about Proposition 30

In 1966, California assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh stated the greatest of all legislative maxims: "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Guess what? Proposition 30 es la leche maxima.

Gov. Brown's ballot initiative to raise taxes (now known as Proposition 30) garnered $6.3 million in contributions basically over a 90 day period and $9.8 million total in 2012 according to the most recent campaign reports.

Prop. 30 increases personal income tax on annual earnings over $250,000 for seven years. It also increases sales and use tax by ¼ cent for four years and allocates temporary tax revenues of 89% to K-12 schools and 11% to community colleges.

It would prohibit funds be spent for administrative costs yet gives local school boards the discretion to decide -in an open meeting and subject to an annual audit - how funds are to be spent. Plus, it guarantees funding for public safety services realigned from state to local governments.

Cogent facts attack: So who gets the money under Prop. 30? The state (generically); K-12 schools; community colleges; and, public safety services. And who’s doing all the heavy lifting? It’s a group called Californians Working Together to Restore and Protect Public Schools, Universities and Public Safety.

And who are their largest donors? TEACHERS AND LABOR with $1.5 million coming from the California Teachers Association; $1.2 million from the American Federation of Teachers; $1.2 million from Service Employees International Union Local 1000; $1 million from the California State Council of Service Employees; $1 million from the United Domestic Workers of America; and, $800K from the California Federation of Teachers. BTW: Californians Working Together to Restore and Protect Public Schools, Universities and Public Safety is sponsored in part by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and those self-same teachers and labor unions.

Plus more than two dozen Democratic state legislators have contributed $5,000 to $25,000 from their campaign or ballot measure committees’ money to help pass the initiative. (It should be noted that of all the factoids in this post, this one makes the most sense since the lawmaker’s budget doesn’t fly if JB’s tax measure fails – plain and simple.)

Meanwhile, Proposition 38, the ‘Our Children, Our Future’ tax measure (AKA The Millionaire’s Tax), is supported by attorney and billionaire Molly Munger and the California State PTA. It is a competing initiative to Brown’s proposal and would raise income taxes on all but California's lowest income wage earners. It trails significantly in the polls behind the Gov's measure.

So... got milk?