Brown Planning Pay Raises for State Workers

At least that's my take on these comments, as quoted in the U-T article headlined "NOT ALL PROP. 30 TAX HIKE MONEY GOING TO SCHOOLS."

Brown’s proposed $97.7 billion general fund budget assumes no state employee raises beyond those already required in union contracts. But contracts for all but two of the state’s 21 bargaining units are set to expire by July 2, and the Legislature now has a supermajority of labor-friendly Democrats.
At a news conference, Brown said he didn’t budget raises for fear that it could set an expectation for any specified amount.
“Collective bargaining means you got to meet in good faith, listen to the other side, and you go back and forth,” he said. “We have to enter those negotiations with an open mind, though we have to live within our means. So, I don’t want to put too many of my cards on the table.”

The Governor is signaling that he is ready to grant pay raises by these comments.  How could anyone with a shred of common sense think otherwise?  His comments about a specific amount remind me of an old and bad joke about an older profession than politician.  The only question we are debating now is how much; how much will the governor pay back the unions for their support of him.

Meanwhile all those commercials about strict accountability to ensure that Prop 30 cash went to the schools are swept into the dustbin  like so much election day confetti.

Towards the end of the article Brown equates government spending with investing and argues that government is how a free people act together.  He claims that he will spend the increased tax revenue wisely.  Unfortunately, the budgeting process in this state is largely illegitimate.  Big chunks go to education, but the state continues to rank low in educational attainment.  Further, huge amounts of education spending never makes it to the classroom, only 61% in fact.  Higher education spending has the effect of perpetuating a left wing ideology and to stifle dissent.  How is that legitimate?

The state has made the cities and counties its vassals, providing insufficient funding for required programs, loading another $5.3 billion on them, another source of illegitimacy.  Health and Human Services is the second highest category, behind K-12, yet California never participated in the welfare reform that the rest of the nation underwent in the Clinton years.  How is unreformed welfare spending legitimate?

Here is the actual budget summary, note all the hikes in spending:

Not So Bold Prediction - Proposition 30 Will Fail

I have been watching California propositions for a very long time.  (I am a political junkie that first got interested in the politics of Barry Goldwater around age 7, I am not kidding.)  I don't have to do much research to know that Jerry Brown's tax hike initiative is going to tank.  First, there is a competing worser initiative on the ballot, Molly Munger's proposition 38.  Voters get nervous when they see two broad based tax increases.  Second, true to form, support is tanking at the last minute, even if the proposition is still leading.  Here is a picture of the support over time from Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy:

They latest numbers have support now at 49.2%.  In my experience, tax increases never garner last minute increases, and always tend to underperform at the polls.  Maybe its because some people are afraid to the pollsters that they are against good schools, or some other lofty promise, but get in the polling booth and think about how the tax increase will make everything more expensive.  Maybe they just get around to reading the fine print, like the across the board sales tax increase.  Who knows? I just know that this is the point at which supporters and opponents start conceding the tax hike is going to lose.  Here is Teacher's Union spokesperson Dan Wells, as quoted in Annenberg Digital News (of USC) on why they spent so much against Proposition 32, and therefor hinting that's why Prop 30 will fail:

“Proposition 30 and Proposition 32 are both important, but for the long range implications on the political landscape in California, 32 is going to have huge repercussions, whereas 30 is more dedicated specifically to education at this point,” said Wells.  

Wells emphasized that while both fronts are important, opposing Proposition 32 has more implications for the quality of education in the long-run. He explained that Proposition 32 would bar unions from fighting for measures like Proposition 30 in the first place.  

“As far as we’re concerned, Proposition 32 is the whole ball game,” he added.

Maybe he's right, but he sounds like he's preparing the post-election spin.

Other polling paints an even bleaker picture for the measure.  From the LATimes:

Support has plunged for Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to raise billions of dollars in taxes, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows, with less than half of voters planning to cast ballots in favor of the measure.

Only 46% of registered voters now support Brown's initiative, a 9-point drop over the last month, and 42% oppose it. The findings follow a lackluster month of campaigning by the governor, who had spent little time on the stump and found himself fighting off attacks from backers of a separate ballot measure that would raise taxes for schools.

This was a poll of registered voters, and likely voters are going to be more conservative.  I wonder how Jerry Brown will threaten voters next?