Maine -- Another Three-Way to Produce Another GOP?

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2012/10/05/
leftwing_independent_losing_steam_in_maine_senate_race

Independent Angus King

Mr. Angus King is running ahead in a three-way race for the US Senate seat which Olympia Snowe is vacating, frustrated and frazzled by the partisan gridlock which is grinding Washington to a halt. I am more inclined to believe that she chose not to run, since a primary challenge was looking imminent, and she was polling better numbers with Democrats than with Republicans. She declined to switch parties, as did her "centrist" colleague Arlen Specter three years ago, with the net result that he lost prestige in the Senate, respect from his constituents, and his seat in a brutal primary.

Mr. King has served in Maine statewide office before, as governor. His policies include a strange mixture of local control and social liberalism. He is a par t of the new "No Labels" movement popping up in D.C.

He supports ObamaCare, which should be the kiss of death for King, the  Independent who claims that he will not caucus with either party if elected. Of course, his record, his stance on key issues, and his previous endorsements of John Kerry then Barack Obama, whom he also endorses for 2012, suggest where his loyalties lie.

Charles Summers

Earlier in the race, King had a twenty-point lead over the Republican, Iraq veteran Charles Summers, yet that lead has just dwindled to 14.5%. This huge drop, coupled with financial support for the Democrat, may help the Maine Republicans all the more.

The Democratic party has all but abandoned their own candidate, Cynthia Dill, who has consistently polled in third place. She has complained about the lack of support that the Democratic Party is denying for her.

Cynthia Dill

Mr. Summers may very well pull of the same upset that Governor Paul LePage mustered in 2010. He won 37% of the vote, becoming a Tea Party favorite in the Governor's mansion of a state bolstered by liberal views and moderate scope of government all around.

Imagine -- Olympia Snowe the moderate Republican (or a RINO, if you will) replaced by a real Republican, a war veteran, and a committed Secretary of State for the state. He holds a statewide office now. What's to stop him from capitalizing on this expertise to take the Senate Seat?

Is Maine tilting red? Only time will tell, but some of LePage's reforms seem to be sticking through thick and thin, where his plain-spokenness has not alienated everyone in the state. Summers could do even better.

Only Summers should refrain from saying: "President Obama, go to hell!" or "Tell him to kiss my butt!"

Peggy is Happy Now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444223104578036902059331748.html#

Peggy Noonan is happy now.

Noonan Now is Happy

Her previous rant against the National GOP and their presidential nominee was enough to get them fired up and fighting mad.

Romney was crashing and burning, according to the former Reagan speech writer. His flubs in private meetings, the lack of passion for the race and compassion for the rest was starting to jade the electorate. President Obama's fiscal and domestic policies have been failing this country for the past four years, yet the challenger was still struggling out of the two-to-three point doldrums against the Chicago-based pol.

Then the lightning rod -- the Wednesday debate between a subdued and duly subtracted President and a fired-up incumbent. Romney had energy, panache, a command for the facts and the figures, neither of which figure well for the President, who must face the fact that he has done a poor job, with no record to run on besides "Blame Bush!" and "Give me four more years!"

Romney is not just a choice, but The Alternative. The race is now getting interesting. Senatorial candidates are polling better now than they had about a month ago. Romney is creeping ahead of Obama in Virginia and Florida, although Ohio still remains a toss-up.

Peggy is happy now, and so am I, and so is the rest of the country, I am sure.

Sandra -- A Grown Woman Who Had Not Grown Up

In PAUs throughout the central part of Los Angeles County, I encountered different types of people. As a substitute teacher, I was resigned to doing as little as possible yet driving as far as possible. I just did not want to settle into a job that I felt conflicted about from the moment that I walked into the room.

Throughout the earlier part of the year, I found that I was getting used to being in my own skin once again. I stopped spending so much time looking over my shoulder trying to make sense of what I was doing in this world. For so long, I was cruising under a lot of stress and strain, not sure what I was doing or where I was going because I had no peace within myself, so convinced was I that I could not settled down and receive any peace until all the other fires burning in my life had been put out first. Of course, trials and tensions produce fires in their own due course, no matter how hard any one of us attempts to make due to do our best to outdo the problems that attempt to do us in.

The one class where I worked a few times meeting the same people - an emotionally disturbed class in Lynwood, had an interesting assortment of people.

One lady refused to do all but what she was contractually obligated to do. She was in deep with the union, and thus refused to be put to work doing things that were not clearly outlined in her contract.

Don't get me wrong -- she worked really hard, but she took as much time as she could to complain about other people, including the teacher she worked with, whom I was covering for that day.

Another lady was a real team player, the type who worked with students after school. She liked putting together fun activities for students to participate in.

The third lady was a svelte young person who liked to cook, liked to bake, and loved to share all the good things that she made with the staff. She was a substitute paraeducator, but she treated every job as if she were the full-time staff member.

Then there was Sandra. She was a larger lady, a mother and a grandmother who loved sparring with the union lady for fun. They loved making fun of each other, giving each other a hard time. Yet Sandra in many ways had also failed to grow up.

She had been married four times, "she had worn that T-shirt" she liked to admit. She was still taking unemployment pay for her time. She loved referring to trite phrases to express herself, like "are you clowning on me?" and other weird phrases. She was supposed to be a grandmother, but she still complained about the abuse that she had suffered as a child, complaining about the pain of a mother who had abused her when she was young, then telling her to wash her face.

Once, I pointed at her because I agreed with a point that she had made, then she snapped at m: "Don't go pointing at me like that!" she exclaimed. I told her not to take it personally, to which she admitted: "When you point at me like that, it reminds me of my mother, when she used to scold me." Then she would tell us again how she was abused as a kid and did not realize until recently how abused she was as a kid.

I can relate to these discoveries, but I must also add that life is more than reliving the pains of yesterday. There is no excuse whatsoever for continuing to blame our present on a past which for all purposes exists solely in our mind. The world, our experience, our lives are greater than a collection of recollections in the back of our minds. Sandra had not learned this, sadly, yet here she was teaching children, still talking about all that God had done for her, praising Jesus for His love for her, yet still talking about God as if He played but a minor role in our lives.

Sandra needed a savior for every day, not just for eternity, one who respected her as more than one speck of sand on the seashore. She was good with kids, no doubt about it. But the students that she and I ended up working with toward the end of the year suffered with the greatest degree of multiple disabilities. Most of the time we were talking and singing with them, but they could not say anything back, even if they wanted to. Most of the day in those classes, I would sit and tell a story or two, sing some songs, then we would serve the students their breakfast and lunch. Those days were some of the lowest and slowest points in my life, more likely designed for women who had already raised children and missed the daily challenges and joys of raising children once again.

That was not me.

Sandra may have been living in the past, but she was present to those young people, no matter how deficient they may have been. I only hope that she received enough grace in her life to rest in New Life as opposed to the old way of trying to get by, crying about what parents had done to er, instead of rejoicing in the love of her real Father in Heaven.

The Handshake in the Public School

How many students what to play "adult"?

I do not blame many students who want more for their lives than to be told what to do and where to go and why they should be studying what they are studying.

How many times would students approach from the first moment to shake my hand?

I do remember one kid, though. He never behaved in class, no matter what was going on. But he was more than happy to shake my hand when he saw me at one of the basketball games after school.

I never knew what to take away after running into that kid -- Walt was his name. He liked to ditch his assigned classes and hide out in other rooms. Once he forged a note from the attendance office just to sit in on a Spanish class. In a drama class that I was covering a month later, he tried to hide and kick it with some of his friends. When I finally caught on to his "playing classroom hooky", he scampered off just quickly enough that security just missed him once I called them.

I will never forget the larger kid I first met when I was long-term subbing (and sinking fast). He came in the first day and shook my hand, I guess supposing that I was going to be the hero that made that class worth attending. A shame that I could get very little done from the first day, mostly because I was fending off the tsunami of reproach in a high school suffused with the culture of disrespect.

No way to row up against a current designed to eat up the best and spit out the worst.

Yet here was this big junior, who did little work, who "liked me" for whatever reason, perhaps because I was the only teacher willing to hang on for six weeks to try to make something happen at that school.

This kid showed up late, did no work, even when in class, supposedly had an Individual Education Plan, yet made excuses and gave me a hard time, as most kids do, when I called home and told his parents to make sure that he got to class on time as opposed to thirty minutes after the tardy bell.

This kids rooted for me throughout the entire six weeks, I guess hoping for me to suddenly turn from a worm into a butterfly, from a substitute to Jaime Escalante. Didn't happen -- because deep down inside, I just did not want the job.

The handshake in the public school: an adolescent's attempt to play adult, I suppose. I remember also this squat Asian kid, a sophomore who had divulged to me that he got caught selling drugs, went to a Community Day School, then worked his way back into the public school system, where I was working that day. I do recall that he saw me tear one student severely for rampant disrespect, enough that when I saw him again at the same high school a week later, he just shook my hand, no questions asked.

The handshake in the public school from the younger set -- does not really mean much, especially from the middle school students, unless of course they are high achievers to begin with and want to display themselves with greater panache. The first time that a student shook my hand, it was a gawky, awkward eighth grade boy, someone who wanted to play himself up as courageous, strong, able to be something more than a quiet kid sitting at the front of the room.

He turned about to be a snide student in a way when I came back to the room and taught a lesson the next week. He started asking me inappropriate questions which had nothing to do  with what I was supposed to be teaching that day. So much for pretending to be an adult!

The worst handshake that I ever received, though, did not come from a student, but from an administrator, a principal who did not support my authoritative ways and preferred to accept the opinion of the entitled students and the irate parents. He grabbed my hand with one firm handshake, followed by a long tirade, full off sputter and supposition. This administrator was in way over his head, and he easily took it out on me, the first year teacher who had no tenure, who could not hide behind union power to protect me from the big, bad principal and conniving, colluding parents. He gave me a firm handshake before yelling at me, just going through the motions of politesse, I guess.

The handshake, like so much in public schools, is mere pretense and formality with nothing of merit or integrity behind it all.

Tutoring - The Two Agencies

I tried the tutoring thing for as long as I could stand it. Most of the homes that I went to were families living below the poverty line. In one apartment complex near Lawndale, the stench of waste and trash was so pervasive, flies filled the air on the outside, and the Mariachi music that I had to contend with from the drunken neighbors upstairs competed with any real teaching that I tried to complete.

Some of the homes that I visited in the Hawthorne area were better kept, to be sure, but for the most part tutoring was a forced march in many ways. I did not like preparing lessons in advance, and much of the time I walked into the session just going with whatever paperwork, lessons, and other simply pacing plans that the supervisors had given me.

Looking back on the whole affair, I admit candidly and without reserve that I hated tutoring. It was not an engaging and enriching profession. You can make money as a tutor if you run the company yourself, but the amount of time and money that goes into the whole enterprise makes the investment time-consuming at best, and demeaning and depleting at worst. As  for the runts in the field like me, who would drive from one home to the next, the work was slow and steady, with no hope for advancement. Teaching and tutoring are for the strong at heart who believe that they are making a difference in the life of youth. To the best of my knowledge, these kids needed more than a tutor twice a week. They needed a stable home, a real family, and in many cases a sense of direction.

Still, all things do work for good, and I believe that I made a differnence in the life of many young people. The best impact that a teacher makes -- he does not know about until many years later, when the kid he was tutoring goes on to become a CEO in a company or Supreme Court Justice. Who knows where they end up, but at least I can look forward to the limited option of boasting -- "I tutored that kid when he was still in the ghetto!"

I worked for two tutoring agencies. One was based on the hill in Rancho Palos Verdes,  ETS Tutoring, where I was assigned to work with Title I students -- kids getting a free lunch because they lived in a low-income home. The other company, Tutor Doctor of the South Bay, was a franchise corporation, more upscale and better pay. I worked with higher incomes families, and I worked in better conditions. Of course, some of the parents were high maintenance as all get out. Still, the kids were overachievers who were more prepared for what I needed them to do from session to session.

I liked taking assignments with the second company, although the first one offered me more work.

I needed the money, and if I could not make it as a full-time teacher, then why not work with students one-on-one in their homes, hired on an hourly basis by the parents who wanted their kids to do better?

The different dramas that I stepped into suggested more problems were going on in many households than students who were not excelling in different subjects.

The one family that I enjoyed the most -- the S. family in South Torrance -- provided snacks and resources for me, but I have to admit that on many days I was in two places at once.

I was a nervous wreck in those days, not knowing how to go in and how to go out. I had struggled to the point of despair in my last full-time assignment, quitting shortly after the first semester, and still trying to psych myself into believing that I was supposed to be a teacher.

In the interim, I made the most of my "teaching skills" and got busy preparing lessons for the French student whom I tutored with nearly reliable regularity for two years.

I am grateful to that family, to that home. It was the one place that I looked forward to in the midst of the all the times and trails that I was trying to get through.

Honestly, I do not think that I would have come to end of myself without the tutoring that I accomplished, without the learning that these students were willing to receive. The student in South Torrance was the one kid who gave me the most respect, and the one time in the week when I felt that I was doing something worthwhile. I also tutored another young lady in South Torrance, a sixth grader from Richardson Middle School. She was a lively person, and her mother was an accomplished linguist who spoke French and Arabic! A very eclectic family, and the young lady whom I tutored -- she spoke French with real panache, sometimes with a better accent than mine! I was really impressed, although I could tell from time to time that the young girl wanted to be doing something else.

So many things took place in those days. Tutoring was not the easiest thing for me to do, for the most part because I was still so attached to trying to hold on tight to doing everything myself instead of living the '"Let Go" Life which awaits everyone who walks by faith.

Tutoring was a necessary step in the right, and the righteous, direction. I look back from the mountain of today, and those valleys yield more light than darkness and despair.

George Will on Mitt Romney

George Will outlined three points which Romney needed to make in the debate.

1. Stopped the polls from declaring that he has lost, and that one month before election day.

2. Correct serious misrepresentations of his program on Medicare and tax cuts

3. Make the statement to the conservative majority -- do you want the government or the market to allocate resources.

George Will is as erudite as he is effective. He never vapidly compliments anyone, yet his growing respect for Romney suggests that the Massachusetts moderate has found his place in the national spotlight and has ignited a latent following among the base and the independents who have been waiting for the break-out moment of challenger challenging the challenged incumbent.

One month remains until Election Day, one of the most underrated holidays in the United States political and moral culture. 2012 is a watershed year, with the rains of easy money and easier credit giving way to the realities of payback and pay up.

Mitt Romney is the fatherly, mature, and able adult who can tell the American people better than the current president that the American people cannot get what they want.

Still, Romney has not explained how he as President will maintain the same spending for the military and cut taxes and bring down the deficit. This matter requires more scrutiny in order for the Republican candidate to emerge beyond "not Obama".

What is Wrong with the National Discourse?

"The Rumble 2012" between Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart clashed on a number of issues.

From the social security to the role of the Capitol to socialism and capitalism, the two media pundits punched and kicked with jokes interspersed about the role of government and the future of the American Experiment.

One question caught my attention: "What is wrong with this nation's discourse?"

O'Reilly blamed capitalism, strangely enough, because hate-mongering media personalities spew hate, and people pay for it and lick it up fast.

I believe that this country for the first time not only must face a fundamentally debate about the role of government, but also must come to groups with the pervasive yet unsustainable reality that nearly half the people are receiving something from the federal government. Call it "The 47% Principle" if you will, but a government that is giving so much will end up having to take up more time, space, and influence in our culture.

This trend does not jive with the vision of the Founders, or their version of the United States Constitution. A limited government with unlimited scope in our lives is a flat contradiction, like mixing law and grace, with the wineskin burst and the wine wasted.

Either we embrace freedom and refrain from Big Government, or we let Big Government grab us into its hold, in which everyone of us depends on one central authority, one which claims a god-like status on earth, only to run contrary to the undeniable truth -- that government must be limited due to the finite capacities of man, anyway.

What is wrong with the national discourse? We want all that we want, yet we do not want to pay all that it takes. We want the proverbial cake, and we want to eat it, too. The closed order of a fallen Eden still falls on deaf ears, except to the sounds of resounding promises from one of two elites competing for the Presidency. For the first time in a generation, certainly, the Presidential election entails two distinct views of government, the role of man and the role of the state.

Mr. Stewart, like many media elites, is convinced that smart people can operate a bureaucracy, but we just have to find those people and all will be well. Even O'Reilly evinced some of that executive over-appreciation, declaring that this country needs another Lincoln, even though the sixteenth President expanded the role of government -- national conscription, income taxes, and statewide concentration camps -- while deteriorating the compact of states and federal government which had initially established the United States of America.

Big Government inevitably springs from Big Individuals, the men (since a woman has not yet been elected President) who run for office and then presume to run the country. They are men, mere mortals, yet as voters, as citizens look more to what they can get as opposed to what they are and what they already have, we witness a growing dynamic of men and women who define themselves in relation to the state.

The "47%" is a moniker of distinction, now. The identity of the American is transforming from what he is based on the Creator who imparts  natural rights, now replaced by the State which conveys artificial benefits.

What is wrong with our national discourse? The source of identity has merged with parties, politics, and talking points, deflating us of our sense of self, of truth, of stability in a shifting world, where conformity and comfort are replacing truth and tradition. Yet the country's growing inability to solve problems stems from this inability to articulate the problem, for if one defines every problem based on what one gets as one is, then divorcing the limits from the liabilities of government becomes impossible -- and thus the impasse in our governments and in our media.

Waxman: Worthy of Dishonorable Discharge



Waxman: Disservice to Our Armed Forces

I have resisted writing this post, for to indict a federal official, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), for not serving our armed veterans with proper care and concern, and especially during a fraught political campaign, is a serious charge which can smack of crass sanctimonious and sentimentality. Veterans should not be props for a political candidate or for a political cause. Democrat or Republican, veterans affairs should be an issue that brings both sides of the political spectrum together for the greater good of our armed forced and our country. 

Congressman Waxman is responsible for the Brentwood VA, which resides in the current 30^th and future 33^rd Congressional district. Outside of the Brentwood VA and adjacent territories, a group of activists on behalf of veterans, including the veterans themselves, have displayed the American flag upside down. At first, I thought that the upside-down flag signaled disgraceful protest, for it is a serious to present the American flag contrary to its proper presentation. I have since learned that an upside-down flag is a military signal for distress, particularly because Congressman Henry Waxman, who oversees the Brentwood VA in his district, has done nothing short of betrayal to our veterans and their land.

Rob Rosebrock in the LA Times:
Spokesman for Veterans Revolution



Yet following the recent revelations of the Brentwood VA’s private leases and public disrespect to our veterans, many of whom live homeless and marginalized around the Santa Monica Bay, I could forbear no longer. Now that major media outlets, including the liberal leaning Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio, have come forward to report on this issue, the rest of the community must not neglect to notice this matter.

I must add my personal connection, however slight, to the Brentwood VA. My mother, a nurse and at one time a nursing instructor, worked briefly at the Brentwood VA. My father is a Vietnam veteran, and his father fought in World War II. My other grandfather fought in Korea. Having read about the terrible treatment which our veterans have received at the Veterans Administration, I have to wonder why it has taken so long for the mainstream media, or any advocate on behalf of our country and our veterans, to stand up to the powerful federal interests which have done so little yet must do so much more for our armed forces upon returning state side.

Better late than never, NPR reports that the Brentwood VA has some of the most valuable land in West Los Angeles. Beyond its real estate value, its moral estate on behalf of our fallen deserves greater attention. However, Carolina Winston Barrie – a relative of the original donors of the land – recounted to NPR that much of the land has been converted to uses which have nothing to do with assisting veterans, including a baseball stadium, laundry facilities, and storage for movie sets. Congressman Waxman (who oversees the property, since it resides within his district) and US Senator Dianne Feinstein passed legislation to forbid the sale and lease of VA property. Yet a legal nicety still permits private operations on the land because private interests can still “share” the property. These rental agreements have generated between $28 and $40 million, yet Waxman has no idea where the money has gone, and three building slated for $20 million in renovations have seen no action toward the realization of those projects.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez reported that Waxman decried his lack of “subpoena power” to investigate what’s going on in the Brentwood VA. Independent challenger Bill Bloomfield quipped while visiting the area that Waxman’s lack of interest or lack of bipartisanship has contributed to the poor status of veterans’ housing. No matter who reports these terrible circumstances, there is no excuse for this lack of oversight. From 2007-2011, Mr. Waxman was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Surely he had subpoena power then, yet never used it.

In previous posts, I have railed against Waxman-Markey, Obama-Waxman Care, Waxman the Taxman, Waxman all Washed-Up over the Clean Water Act, Waxman who says “I Don’t Know!” “I’m Sorry! And “We’re not broke!” Now I write to indict Waxman the Congressman, the politician who has failed our veterans, and thus has failed to earn another term in office.

Waxman is unfit for reelection precisely because of his poor leadership and stewardship on the matter of Veterans Affairs, specifically the Brentwood VA. He had time to go after Big Government Bush following billion-dollar scandals and waste in Iraq, he pushed ObamaCare and Cap and Trade (which was dead on arrival in the Senate), yet Waxman did nothing when he had the power and the presence to demand necessary reforms on behalf of our veterans.

To the voters of the 33^rd – even those who have received letters of response from the Congressman, and those who have good memories of the legislator, Waxman has been derelict in his duty on behalf of our veterans, and for that he deserves nothing less than a dishonorable discharge.

On November 6^th, vote out Waxman and vote for Bill Bloomfield for the 33^rd!

Reflection on Romney's Win in Wednesday Debate

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was in commanding form during Wednesday’s Presidential debate. He hammered President Obama on the economy, our nation’s foreign policy, and ObamaCare. Despite my diminished expectations, Romney mounted incredible yet credible criticism against the Affordable Care Act, since Obama has claimed from the beginning that his signature legislation was modeled after the Massachusetts model, more derisively termed “RomneyCare”.

After listening to cautious conservative pundits like Peggy Noonan and George Will first fire cant against Romney and now descant on President Obama’s deformed inability to articulate a defense or even muster up credible counterattacks against his challenger, I believe that the GOP presidential candidate has more than made the case to the growing number of conservatives and independents in this country who are still hoping for change, and want something better than Obama, not merely different.

However, I cannot help but recall the promising challenge from New England compatriot and comrade in debate New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who declared the following on the Sunday prior to the debate on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” (September 30) :

“I have absolute confidence that, when we get to Thursday morning, George, all you're going to be shaking your head, saying it's a brand-new race with 33 days to go.”

My head is definitely shaking, yet I cannot help thinking that former federal prosecutor and tough-talking Governor Christie helped a lot with primping and prepping Romney. Though not running for President, Christie is certainly helping Romney run forward for the win.

Reforms before Revenue Increases -- No on Prop 30

At the October 4^th, 2012 debate between 66^th Assembly Candidates Craig Huey and Al Muratsuchi, (sponsored by the Torrance Police Officers Association --TPOA), the moderator immoderately tipped his hand, first subtly then overtly promoting Proposition 30, a ballot initiative initiated by Governor Jerry Brown to raise the California sales tax by “only” 0.25% and the income tax on earners of $250,000 and above from “only”  10.3% to 13.3%. The revenue increases are supposed to help our schools and public safety programs, both of which are suffering huge annual cuts from Sacramento. One of the first questions of the TPOA debate, Prop 30 has received a comprehensive number of endorsements, including school districts, labor unions, and numerous media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Education is important, and public education deserves all the support it can get from the public. The Huffington Post  has documented that local governments are bearing a greater burden for education funding. As a number of “Yes on Prop 30” commercials suggest, California ranks 47th in per pupil spending.

However, the RAND Corporation, an independent think tank which investigates policy issues like education and spending, asserts that money matters in education, but more importantly how the money is spent matters.  A second paper outlined that the power of school reform, not higher revenue, has helped raise test scores in different schools. A third study  argued that in spite of limited reforms to advance flexibility in school spending, much of which focuses on phasing out directed spending and categorical funding, California school districts still have not reformed how they spend their funding.

Where do most of our schools spend their money? According to the California Budget Project , four-fifths of school dollars go to salaries and benefits. That is an extensive expenditure, one which challenges the notion that raising revenue is about “the students”.

Instead of focusing on how much money schools receive, the voters  -- the taxpayers – deserve to know how the money is spent, a factor which needs greater attention from our political and media classes. Before asking for more money, Governor Brown needs to implement structural reforms to the data and distribution of taxpayer dollars to our schools. Collective bargaining reforms between school boards and public sector unions would give school districts more freedom to negotiate sky-rocketing pension and health care costs, a measure which would protect school staff salaries and our students while cutting costs and implementing greater efficiency into the system. Before the end of his tumultuous tenure, Former Governor Schwarzenegger  proposed laying off every school superintendent in the state, which in the wake of economic crises in corrupted Inglewood Unified  and fiscally mismanaged Poway Unified , sounds like a sure-fire way to staunch the waste and fraud overwhelming school districts throughout the state.

Raising taxes in a state with one of the highest tax burdens and one of the highest unemployment rates  in the country is a foolish idea. To foist higher taxes on already frustrated and frantic taxpayers, with the empty emphasis on “temporary”, sounds like the empty notion that a wolf can temporarily watch innocent lambs and not go in for the slaughter. The same fleecing will without fail fall on our state, our citizens, and our students following Prop 30’s tax increases.

Despite the TPOA moderator’s hinting that these minor increases would “only” raise the state sales tax by “0.25%” and raise tax rates on income earners of $250,000 and above, his classic argument ignores two glaring realities, still unseen to our political class. First, small businesses by and large file as individuals. Raising taxes on high income earners will hurt small businesses in California. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan discussed this adverse effect  with media personality Chris Matthews. The Internal Revenue Service has also reported that Obama’s tax hikes on the rich will negatively impact one million small businesses. Such a model for state revenue is a recipe for disaster, with higher taxes passing on higher prices to the rest of the state, followed by less investment and more layoffs. Besides, increasing tax rates will not generate increased tax revenues. Democratic President John F. Kennedy cogently explained this “paradoxical”  phenomenon long ago. Before that, Republican President Warren G. Harding  reduced federal tax rates and government spending across the board, which ushered in a sharp recovery following the steep economic recession following World War I. Raising tax rates does not raise revenue, but will motivate high income earner to ferret away their earnings into tax shelters, where the money will be neither taxed nor invested.

Pro 30 will decrease tax revenues, diminish our business class, and delay comprehensive pension reforms, reductions in our state and country bureaucracies, and empowerment of our communities to manage the revenue which they receive already. Until Sacramento decreases and local accountability improves in our schools, there should be more tax increases. On November 30^th, vote “No!” on Proposition 30.