Proposition 30: The first bullet item on the description of Prop 30 says it imposes a “temporary tax to fund education,” but by my way of thinking a more important component of this initiative is that it effectively locks in state funding for local public safety realignment. You may recall a couple/few years back, the folks up in Sacramento decided they couldn’t afford to house all the inmates who were getting sent off to state prison, and their solution was to return huge numbers of them back to County jails around the state. The State promised to provide funding for this “realignment,” but as with all fiscal measures adopted in Sacto, spacious accounting loopholes could easily leave local governments holding the bag and paying for their increased jail populations out of their own general funds.
Prop 30, which imposes a temporary seven-year increase in marginal tax rates on individuals earning more than $250,000 a year (and couples earning more than $500,000), and also increases the statewide sales tax by ¼%, would remedy the looming “realignment” fiscal crisis by locking in funding for local public safety at the state level. Additionally, of course, the added revenue would be used to help fund and restore programs at California’s cash-strapped schools, community colleges and universities.
It’s simple really, as Governor Brown has said:
"For those who've been blessed the most, it's only right, and I think the way to go to say, 'Give some back temporarily, for the next seven years, until our economy finally gets back,' " Brown said at a news conference in Oakland, where he accepted a $1 million contribution to his tax campaign from the influential California Nurses Association.
Later, the Democratic governor invoked the New Testament explicitly.
"Those who we're asking to pay more, I think they can," he said. "And I think it says in the New Testament, 'For those whom much is given, much will be asked,' and that's what we're doing today."
Vote YES on Prop 30.
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