Opinion: Wanted: More budget lobbying by California business groups
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Improving public education has become a boilerplate element of seemingly every plan touted by U.S. business groups for improving competitiveness, innovation and the economy as a whole. High schoolers need much better science and math skills. Universities and community colleges need to turn out more graduates with engineering and technical skills. Young workers aren’t starting their careers with the tools needed for success in the global marketplace.
Yet here we are in California, proposing to trim K-12 spending for the third consecutive year while cutting $1.4 billion from higher ed. And that’s the best-case scenario in Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget, which assumes voters will agree to extend the current income, sales and vehicle tax rates instead of letting them drop back to their 2008-09 levels. If those rates aren’t extended, the state’s public schools will automatically lose $2 billion in funding, and much more will probably have to be slashed from the budgets for all levels of public education.
So why aren’t business groups hammering at the Legislature to, at the very least, approve the proposed budget and put a measure on the June ballot to extend the taxes? In particular, why aren’t they publicly calling out their friends in the GOP for charting a budget course that would be so harmful to public education?
This is especially curious given that the state Chamber of Commerce and a number of its local counterparts have endorsed the Brown approach to closing the state’s $26.6-billion budget gap. It’s probably too late at this point to get the tax proposal on the ballot for the election already scheduled for June 7. And unless at least two Republicans in each chamber agree to support the budget soon, there will be no chance for voters to consider it in a special election later that month.
Negotiations between the governor and lawmakers have proceeded fitfully, but they may be gaining momentum as Republicans narrow their demands. The main things Republicans are seeking now are reducing pensions for state workers, limiting state spending, easing some state regulations and shortening the duration of the tax extensions.
Democrats complain that the Republicans don’t seem to know how to declare victory and bring the talks to a close. If business leaders in California really want a better-prepared, higher-skilled cohort of young workers, they need to make sure their allies in the GOP don’t force even deeper cuts than the schools and universities already face.
Source: California Senate, Gov. Jerry Brown
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-- Jon Healey
