53.7 F
San Diego
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

Editorial — The Disheartening Truth Behind ‘Son of 26’

Two months after a sound defeat at the March polls, the sponsors of Proposition 26 are back.

Prop. 26, you’ll recall, attempted to lower the voter approval needed to pass local school bonds from a two-thirds super-majority to a simple majority of 50 percent plus one. The ballot measure was soundly defeated at the polls by voters who understood Prop. 26 would have essentially rescinded Proposition 13 and made it easier to raise property taxes.

Despite that it was defeated, proponents of Prop. 26 are back with an initiative drive to place another measure on the November ballot nearly identical to the March measure. The only difference is the new proposal calls for a semi-supermajority voter approval of 55 percent.

Makes you wonder just what part of “No” they don’t understand.

What makes this latest movement so distressing is the fact it’s being led by business interests, primarily a group of wealthy Silicon Valley executives who hope to solve the state’s education woes by placing the financial burden on the backs of homeowners , including their own employees.

We’re all for improving the quality of education in this state. Our news pages have repeatedly reported the problems tech businesses have finding properly educated workers; our editorial pages have repeatedly supported attempts to improve our schools.

But “Son of Prop. 26,” as it’s called, like its predecessor, is a blatant attempt to put the financial burden of educating our youth entirely on property owners, since most local school bonds are paid off exclusively with property taxes. This comes at a time when skyrocketing housing costs have placed homeownership out of the reach of an ever-growing number of California workers.

The cynicism of “Son of Prop. 26” is even more evident when one realizes the same business executives who have just spent $5 million on this initiative drive are also paying high-priced lobbyists to fight business tax increases in Sacramento.

It is just this kind of two-faced, back-door finagling that has created a growing backlash against business, resulting in distrust between workers and management, a resurgence of labor union growth, and anti-business protests in Seattle and elsewhere.

Business needs to be a good corporate citizen and support public education. But supporting education requires more than donating a few old computers to a school or providing funds for construction of a new university building on which you can hang your name.

In the business community, we like to talk of ourselves in terms of machismo. We call ourselves economic “road warriors” and use war fighting terms to describe business strategy.

Yet a recent TV commercial advises young men that to be a “real man” they need to help a child. With “Son of Prop. 26,” we fall far from that mark.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-