Public Investment: March 2006 Archives

As Assemblymembers and Senators try to rush to put the largest bond measure in state history on the June ballot days after the legal deadline, the question on everyone's minds should be: where was the Governor on this earlier?

There is no reason why this rush should be happening. The Governor was fine with this proposal being on the November ballot -- why wouldn't he, after all? The infrastructure bond is very popular with voters and it would give him the opportunity to talk about it at every campaign stop if it was on the ballot at the same time as he was up for re-election. So why this last-ditch effort to rush for June?

My guess is it's more smoke and mirrors -- what we've come to expect from the Schwarzenegger administration. And with the mainstream press as clueless as it is, it's not difficult to sell the storyline of the "incompetent Legislature" that can't get it together to pass this bond. But this, of course, is not the true story.

There are two main things to remember here -- things you will not read about in the mainstream media. One, no matter how hard the Democrats work to come up with a plan that would benefit most Californians, the Republicans in the Legislature will always stonewall them. The Republicans in the California Legislature are some of the most right-wing, Neanderthal, outside-of-the-mainstream people in politics. They have seats only because seats have been rigged for them -- not because these kinds of Republicans could ever win in a competitive district in California, the most progressive state in the nation.

Two, stop for a second to think about the level of negotiation and compromise that must go into a $50 BILLION bond for massive infrastructure projects all across the state (in every Legislator's district). That's a lot of money. Those are a lot of projects. Furthermore, it has to pass by a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and Senate, something that rarely happens anytime ever (see above comment about Republicans), as well as the Governor's office, when the Governor is banking his re-election on this plan.

The chances of something like this being hashed out in a week are slim, and they should be. In fact, if they do manage to squeeze something out in the middle of the night when everyone is at wits-end, it will be the people of California who lose. It's not possible for a bond package being executed in this rushed and thrown together way to be the best bond package for the people of this state. You can thank Gov. Schwarzenegger for another example of failed leadership amid opportunity.

California Senate Majority Leader Don Perata is not getting it again. From his letter to Rob Reiner, who is heading the campaign, as reported in today's Chron...

"I question if the billions of dollars mandated for preschool in Prop. 82 is equitable. Critics argue that Prop. 82 wouldn't improve access to those who need it most: poor, disadvantaged and English learners," Perata wrote. "Instead, the initiative would be a financial boon to families that already pay for their children's preschool education."

Means-testing is one of the classic arguments that consevatives use to argue against otherwise sound investments in society. There are two big problems with this: one, it adds considerably to the adminstrative costs, and two (even more problematic) is that it is a sure-fire way to set up a program to be starved for money later. Plenty of squeezed middle-class families in this state don't have a few extra grand laying around to send their kids to preschool. The costs of helping the few families who can truly afford it easily are negligible compared to the security and positive impacts (fiscal and otherwise) universal preschool will provide over time.

The fact is that preschool increases the possibilities for kids to get to the higher level of symbolic thought they're going to need to build and compete in today's economy. Preschool is simply a good investment. There are some troubling things about the intiative as proposed, but the Senator's opposition to it on these grounds may be penny wise but it is surely pound foolish.

To the Senator's credit, he did defend First 5 from the politically motivated fire it's been taking recently. The bill mentioned in the Chron's story that would slash the advertising budget is foolish. What good is a preschool program if no one knows about it? This kind of positive shaping of cultural opinion is very much something the state should be engaged in.