Says tax increase goes mostly towards salaries, not classrooms




What a disappointment to see the front page of The Acorn running a bleeding heart story about the teachers, the kids and the need to “save our schools” with higher taxes. I can only hope that taxpayers have wised up this election cycle and will not allow themselves to be duped again.

Gov. Brown gave his staff a raise this year and all the state legislators agreed to give themselves raises too. California is one of the highest taxed states in the union. Coincidentally, it’s also billions of dollars in debt with 20 to 25 percent of its residents unemployed or under- employed.

Businesses are fleeing the state and so are a large portion of the middle class that can no longer afford the cost of living here.

In the wake of this economic tsunami, Gov. Brown and his democratic legislators believe higher taxes are the only way. Eighty percent of the California education budget is spent on salaries for teachers and administrators and only 20 percent is actually spent on the kids. So why would anyone vote to raise taxes?

In California we’re taxed the highest or near the highest in every category and we get the smallest in return. We have the highest paid teachers in the country and we’re 47th in the country in test scores. Our Cal-Trans workers are the highest paid and yet parts of Ventura Boulevard would rival a third world country’s worst street.

Bottom line: Virtually our entire General Fund is being spent on salaries and pensions for union workers and not being spent on improving anything in this state, including education or infrastructure.

The only hope for change is for Californians to just say no to any more tax increases. Its time for a fundamental restructuring of our spending once and for all.

Brad Stein

Woodland Hills



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *