Basically, taxpayers would pay $2.4 billion in higher taxes to get four percent more of our kids into preschool. That just doesn't seem like a very good bang for the buck. Rather than focus resources on the state's most pressing needs or helping parents of low-income families who need the most help sending their kids to preschool, this flawed measure creates a subsidy for rich and middle-income families that already send their kids to preschool. |
It is premature. We're a vast state with critical needs. If investment is put together in a fragmented way with initiatives by special interest groups, it is going to be haphazard. |
Rather than focus resources on the state's most pressing needs or helping parents of low-income families who need the most help sending their kids to preschool, this flawed measure creates a subsidy for rich and middle-income families that already send their kids to preschool. |
Rob Reiner should do the right thing and pull the ads immediately. He's the chair of the initiative campaign and he's the chair of the First 5 Commission. One call from him and the ads are gone. He needs to step in to prevent even the whiff of political impropriety. |
Whenever you start an entirely new state bureaucracy like this initiative proposes, the costs always exceed initial estimates. When that happens, parents of preschool children could be charged a fee or the legislature could raise taxes on all Californians to keep the new bureaucracy going. |