Morrell

Point of view

Posted: 08/30/2012 09:02:41 AM PDT

In these last days of the legislative session we have seen the worst of the worst bills on the Assembly floor like AB 1436 which would open the door to voter fraud by allowing “same-day” voter registration with no identity verification. Or SB 1140 which would weaken Proposition 8, or SB 1234 which would force businesses to provide a one-size-fits-all approach to retirement savings managed by – get this – our broken state government.

Another such bill is Assembly Bill 1500, authored by the majority party, which would raise taxes on Californians by over $1 billion. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim they are fighting for higher education, but actions speak louder than words. Their 2011-2012 state budget signed by the governor and passed by legislative Democrats cut $1.4 billion in education revenue from the UC and Cal State system, on top of the $300 million in trigger cuts to our schools. To make matters worse, 99 percent of the trigger cuts in the 2012-2013 budget target education; not to mention lowering our education standards and expectations in our already struggling classrooms.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Earlier this year, my Republican colleagues and I proposed a Roadmap to Protect Classrooms and Taxpayers which would have spared education from the majority’s trigger cuts and would have eliminated the need for tax increases by using the principles of good government and carefully guarding the taxpayers’ money and trust. Unfortunately, our calls to protect education and taxpayers fell on deaf ears. As a result, colleges and universities now rely more on student fees than on any other revenue because of the drastic cuts implemented by the majority party.

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