Thursday, May 29, 2008

Summer's Here and the Time is Right

In case you haven't heard, California's schools are facing a 10% budget cut which will gut an already compromised and weakened system - once the best in the country.

One mother's reaction is to organize a march on Sacramento to, to quote journalist and blogger Celeste Fremon, "protest the latest draconian round of public education budget cuts. The idea was to get a bunch of press attention and, in so doing, hopefully goad/threaten/persuade/emotionally blackmail lawmakers into budget cutting somewhere other than education."

Where to cut?

Fremon has one suggestion:"(The early release of those 22,000 low-level, short-timer prisoners—a move on which Arnold back-pedaled—might be a good place to start.)"

I'm game.

I was a student in those pre-Proposition 13 years. I remember what it was like and I know that I am here in large part due to that well-funded public education.

Some may recognize the mother behind this rally as Sandra Tsing Loh, a So Cal radio personality and writer who comes into my life via KPCC, the Pasadena NPR affiliate.

Check out their website by clicking here. See what you can do. Do it. Pass the word.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sandra is such a total babe.

Anonymous said...

Taxes will have to be raised; of course, the republican cabal will shriek and scream like litte girls.

Anonymous said...

....for dancing in the street.

torabora said...

I'd certainly like to see 22000 inmates released early on parole too! The state might save about a billion dollars. That is about 6% of the budget shortfall.

Only if those who are for that gambit take personal financial responsibility for the care, feeding, and behavior of each inmate released into their custody.

Sorta like a get a free dog from the pound day.

I bet you there wouldn't be many takers.

So even if we release 22000 criminals back into YOUR neighborhood, how are we getting the other 94% of the budget shortfall? MMMMMM?

The only way out of this budget mess is to TEMPORARILY raise income and sales taxes. We have a historic collapse in the housing markets and it will take 3-5 years to recover from that. We could also help the budget by drilling that oil off the California coast but I think that some would rather see us bankrupt.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...