Oppose Propositions 1A-1E

Have you ever been in an unhealthy relationship? Has it been because in some way you enabled your partner to continue to behave in unhealthy ways? I am sure that to some extent all of us have at some point. But then we graduate from high school, get older, more mature and hopefully make better choices in our behaviors and our partners. Unfortunately when it comes to our relationships to policy makers in Sacramento we continue to enable unhealthy choices that in the end affect us in dire ways.

We want to give them the benefit of the doubt, think that they will change and use the enormous amount of taxes--that they take out of our paycheck, cell phone bills, every time we buy something at the store--to at least pay for quality education, public transportation, housing and healthcare. But all the while they are cheating on us with the prison construction companies and tax breaks for corporations. Do we need reforms of the criminal legal system? Desperately. Will cutting the entire prison budget solve the problem? No, but the $4.5 billion added to the prison budget this year is never mentioned and they are moving ahead with trying to add more taxes and debt.

According to state figures, the amount of voter-approved bonds has more than doubled--from $70 billion in 2003 to $144 billion today. Most of the bonds the state sells are general obligation bonds, meaning they are repaid from our State income and property taxes. The state's debt payments on about three-fourths of these bonds are made from the state's General Fund.

Resources that we need to have sustainable, well-educated and healthy communities are being given away to corporations through tax breaks while the legislators increase our taxes, taxes that are given in interest payments to wealthy investors that lend CA money. They are spending billions of dollars on freeway and rail expansion that exacerbates global warming and the public health crisis while cutting health programs; constructing shiny new prisons and hiring prison guards and police while the Golden State's schools are crumbling and teachers and counselors are being cut. Take a look how money is moved around...

Money taken out of the pocket of poor folks and communities of color:

• Sales tax increases- 1 cent increase (2009)- $5.8 billion each year
• Vehicle license fee increase (2009)- $1.5 billion each year
• Reduced tax credit for children (2009)- $1.4 billion each year
• Education cut - $8.6 billion in over 2 years Public schools crumbling, thousands of teachers fired, no school retrofitting and delayed book purchases and they are talking about an additional $3 billion
• Money cut from public transportation funds (2008)- $1.3 billion
• Houses foreclosed, 11% unemployment for those who aren't in prison and are still looking for jobs
• Eliminates COLA increases for SSI/SSP and CalWORKS - $670 million

Money given to Corporations, Prisons and Construction companies:
• Tax breaks for corporations-$690 million/year
• Prison beds (53,000 proposed to be constructed)
• Construction- $7 billion to be borrowed ($15 billion with interest)
• Operations- $1.7 billion /year to operate (no money for this yet)
• New loans, bonds and debt created- $11 billion borrowed with at least an additional $13 billion in interest
• $19 billion to construct freeways from Prop 1B.

Propositions 1A-1F are false choices and we urge you to oppose Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E [1]* [2]. Earlier this year the state legislature approved a budget that already assumed that Californians would pass these measures. In the month that followed they found out that they were already $15 billion in the red. These propositions are asking permission to:

1) Free up earmarked monies from things like mental health, early childhood education to use to fill a soon-to-be-bottomless hole of debt that was created and exacerbated by California's prison addiction and tax breaks for corporations and pensions for law enforcement personnel. Prop 1E takes half a million out of mental health and $1.6 million out of early childhood programs.
2) Extend the 2-year one-cent sales tax that they imposed on Californians April 1st, for 2 more years. That would mean that in LA County, we would be paying 9.75% sales tax starting in July because of Measure R (the train tax). That is almost $10 of tax for every $100 purchase.
3) Borrow $5 billion from the revenues of the California lottery that it hasn't even made yet (not counting the interest that in the end will make the debt over $11 billion).

Global capitalism has wreaked hardship on our communities and we need real help. Yet, it seems that no level of government is really providing it. Obama's Stimulus Plan has rewarded those Wall Street tycoons and government cowboys and girls, who were the catalysts of this crisis. California keeps on keeping on with their spend-borrow-spend-tax rut. They say that by not passing these propositions they will have to make more cuts. Yet by passing them they are making cuts to the services that are mentioned above. We must demand cuts to the police/prison state not the social welfare state. We must say no to these false choices. We must make the California legislators and Governor face up to the true choice. Cut the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget. They can reduce it in several ways:

1) Take the $4.5 billion for new prison infrastructure out of the current budget;
2) Don't appeal the Federal Court decision on inhumane overcrowding and for the release of 56,000 prisoners;
3) Change mandatory parole requirements for all people released from prison that were convicted of felonies** [3] (This could release 40,000 prisoners);
4) Don't build AB900's 53,000 new beds that will cost $12-15 billion initially and almost $2 billion annually to operate;
5) Repeal the Three Strikes Law and appoint a sentencing commission with the explicit charge to change sentencing laws in order to reduce the number of people in prison; and
6) Release elderly and seriously ill prisoners.

For us poor folks who have thousands of dollars of debt trying to keep up with the "American Dream", our credit counselors have us sell that extra car that we don't need and can't afford, they don't allow us to borrow any more money and they cut up our credit cards. California legislatures need to cut up the credit cards and cut the spending that they can't afford and we don't need!

Vote No to false choices!

* [Array]Proposition 1A- combines a 4-year tax hike of about $16 billion with a
state spending cap extends temporary tax increases like the one cent
sales tax, the vehicle license fee, and personal income tax.

Proposition 1B- Modification of California Proposition 98 (1998) to
free up money for state's budget overruns from education funding.

Proposition 1C- Sell rights to future lottery proceeds as a way of
raising some cash now for the state budget. Borrow $5 billion against
future state lottery sales. Grants the state permission to stop using
lottery proceeds for education programs. Instead, school funding would
be paid through the general fund.

Proposition 1D- Asks voters to approve taking money from Prop 10 in
1998 for purposes not allowed in that 1998 vote. Would allow the state
to divert $608 million from Proposition 10 (tobacco tax for children's
health care).

Proposition 1E- Asks voters to take money from Prop 63 in 2004 for
purposes not allowed in that 2004 vote. Divert $227 million a year from
Proposition 63 (taxes the wealthy to fund mental health programs).

Prop 1F we actually advocate you to support. It symbolically stops pay increases in deficit years to politicians. Although this would generate only pennies it is a way that we can signal that we won't stand for this any longer.

** [Array]The federal court recently issued a preliminary court order that called for sweeping changes in the CA prison system in terms of parole and sentencing laws. They said that CA must release prisoners not build more prisons to relieve its overcapacity prisons. By changing the mandatory parole for all people released that were convicted of felonies it would reduce the 50% of people that are placed back in prison due to technical parole violations which do not involve a new crime conviction.