Katy Grimes: 20,000 California teachers found pink slips in their mailboxes recently.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the termination notices are the result of a more than $10 billion deficit and decades of reckless overspending.

With California’s education bureaucracy claiming to be teetering on the edge of even more classroom cutbacks, most would expect that California’s political class would be looking at every possible way to divert money back into education. Schools and teachers report that they already have to make choices between  reading specialists and basic classroom needs like paper, pencils, erasers, paint, scissors, and crayons.

The ballot in June instead shows just the opposite is happening. As Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy recently wrote, “…instead of reining in their habit of creating new autopilot spending programs that only add to an already too-big bureaucracy, state politicians have come up with a new ballot-box boondoggle. Proposition 29 on our June 5 ballot creates yet another government bureaucracy… even though we can barely afford to fund the programs we already have.”

Proposition 29 will ensure that more California teachers will receive a pink slip, as will police officers and firefighters, as a bigger chunk of California’s spending goes towards paying off special interests.

Behind this measure lurks Don Perata, notorious politician and former state Senator. Perata is pushing Proposition 29, the ballot measure that would create a brand new state spending program on the backs of the same overburdened taxpayers.  Called the California Cancer Research Act, the measure would add nearly $1 billion worth of new spending annually, and pay for it with tax hikes on Californians.

If the ballot initiative is approved by California’s voters, the tax on cigarettes in the state will increase by $1.00 per pack — again. Unaccountable bureaucrats will be allowed to spend $110 million every year to buy equipment, buildings and real estate, under the guise of anti-smoking. The additional tax revenue will be used to fund cancer research, smoking reduction programs, and tobacco law enforcement. This spending will also include $16 million for the new bureaucracy to run the program, along with all the salary and pension costs that go with it.

The fiscal estimate provided by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office reported:

“Increase in new cigarette tax revenues of about $855 million annually by 2011- 12, declining slightly annually thereafter, for various health research and tobacco-related programs. Increase of about $45 million annually to existing health, natural resources, and research programs funded by existing tobacco taxes. Increase in state and local sales taxes of about $32 million annually.”

That Perata is a career politician, should be reason enough to vote against Prop 29. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The fine print in the measure will provide voters even more reasons to reject this flawed spending measure.

Proposition 29 raises taxes by nearly $1 billion per year and would give completely authority over the money to a commission staffed with six political appointees. The spending decisions of this commission would be untouchable by the Governor and the state Legislature, even in cases of fraud, waste or abuse. There are no restrictions on how the $1 billion by taxing Californians raised can be spent – the money could be spent out of state or even overseas.

The charade is that 20,000 California teachers just received pink slips, and now Perata and cohorts plan to spend money on facilities that Californians will never see, and programs that will probably do nothing to end tobacco-related illnesses — the ballot measure just a convenient vessel for government spending, hiding behind a health issue.

While California’s tax-and-spend lobby can’t get its priorities straight, California voters still can — Proposition 29 is a massive spending boondoggle, and needs to be defeated.

MAR. 30, 2012

DEC. 23, 2011

With California in political turmoil, and one-party rule inching closer to perpetuity, as 2011 comes to an end, this column has more meaning than ever. First published in October, I hope Republicans are now listening.

Throughout the country, but especially in California, the media have been telling Republicans that in order get elected or even keep their elected offices, they must be more moderate, and willing to compromise.

Since when has being a moderate ever worked in California?

A political analysis in the Los Angeles Times in June said that California Republicans must reinvent themselves, and “recruit more moderate candidates and find common ground with more Californians if they are to be at all relevant in Golden State politics.“

Since when is the media the arbiter of what is Republican enough for California? The media already have too much at stake in the game, dictating issues, putting forth policies, and propping up favored candidates, instead of just reporting the news.

Moderates

Moderate Republicans are a fat-free cookie … weak tea… fake butter … light beer … a Tootsie Pop without the Tootsie Roll center. There is no there there.

Moderates stand for nothing and everything at the same time.

However, only a moderate or Republican-light would listen to the media proselytize about how California Republicans can only win if they are more moderate. And this mantra is being pushed by many inside and outside of California.

What California needs is more adults, not more pantywaist, fence-walking professional compromisers who can’t make tough decisions. The state already has enough politicians and political appointees who distance themselves from decision-making.

People who get involved with party politics are expected to be leaders, not just along for the ride, or taking up a seat at the table. But the self-proclaimed moderate Republicans I know stand for nothing and fall for everything. They are weaklings and would sell out their own mothers as long they still had a seat at the Republican Party trough.

Adults and Children

In the real world, conservatives are the adults. Liberals are spoiled trust-fund babies and actually stand for very little of anything of substance. Moderates fall somewhere in the middle, and behave like parents who are desperate for their kids to like them.

The more spoiled and disrespectful a child is allowed to become, the further from reality he is, and the worse his decisions are. Trust-fund children are often the epitome of this. They don’t live in the same reality as those whose money comes from working for a living. Trust-fund children usually have very little respect for anyone. The one thing they are good at is spending someone else’s money. And then they hate the person who provides the income.

Conservatives typically are responsible for earning their own incomes, must live within their means, and make tough decisions about what to do without, in order to meet their debts and obligations.

Moderates are compromisers — the weak-kneed parents who cannot discipline their dreadful children. The children become reprehensible brats who spend recklessly and offend people wherever they go. They dish out entitlements to favored friends with money that is not theirs, while refusing to cut their own frivolous spending.

Does this sound familiar?

Time To Buck Up

Has the media told Democrats that they need to buck up and start acting more like their responsible counterparts? Has any media outlet told Democrats to compromise with Republicans?

California Democrats have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are only capable of reckless spending on endless government programs, while at the same time propping up the unemployable.

Moderates have allowed this to happen.

California’s politicians have nearly lost California, giving it away one bill at a time to labor unions, big corporate special interests, and the mega utility and energy industry. Too many politicians have demonstrated that they are insidious, unreliable and untrustworthy, seeking only to retain office, prominence and status.

But there are more of us than there are of them.

Run To Win

Since when do winners compromise with losers? The very idea of running for an elected office is based in competition. Why would Republicans fight to win elected office, then compromise with those they ran against?

Republicans are told to compromise with the liberal ruling party in the state. It makes no sense when liberals are largely responsible for the economic mess we are in. But they had help.

Are Republicans supposed to compromise on continuing tax increases, the expanding social agenda into public policy, or the desecrated public school system? Are Republicans supposed to compromise on creating government healthcare or the expanding welfare system?

Republicans are supposed to stand for small government. But it is the moderates that hide behind big government and big taxes.

What are the Democrats in the state compromising on? How far across the aisle do their arms reach?

California’s Last Chance

California was once the economic engine of the country. But as liberalism encroached, our public schools dropped into the bottom half of national rankings. The state’s roads and highways, once famed for car travel, have become a pitted and pock marked disaster, and see infrequent repairs.

Regulations have strangled businesses. Manufacturing is nearly gone, moved to other states or bankrupt. Large employers are expanding into other states. Unemployment is the second highest in the country.

As liberalism encroached, the strangeness common in San Francisco stretched beyond that city’s borders into classrooms, places of employment and into California’s permanent laws.

As liberalism encroached, a lazy haze of fog took over union government jobs, and performance declined dramatically.

As liberalism encroached, California became the second highest state in the country for overall taxation, the second highest for sales taxation, and the third-highest state income tax. Added up, it’s very expensive to be a resident of California, and the rewards are dwindling.

Republicans in this state need to show some gravitas and prove that there is substance and depth within the party, or get out of the way for those who will. Contrary to media reports, voters have had enough.

There is no replacement for integrity — not even in California.

- Katy Grimes