Politicians Writing History
Legislators are making themselves into history professors
again and that is probably not a good thing. Days before the Assembly Education
Committee meets on SB 48, which would require school textbooks to include the
role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Americans, and
persons with disabilities, the Department of Education released the 2010
National Assessment of Educational Progress, which reported that only 12% of
high school seniors have a firm grasp of the nation’s history.
How are the two issues connected? As eminent historian,
David McCullough recently told the Wall
Street Journal, one of the problems resulting in the poor understanding of
history is that, "History is often taught in categories – women’s history, African
American history, environmental history…."
The categories come from political meddling. California law
provides a long list of groups required to be treated in textbooks. The Los
Angeles Times editorialized
against SB 48, stating, "Years ago, California made the wise
decision to have experts draw up a balanced social studies curriculum that
became a model for schools nationwide. Legislators aren’t improving education
in the state by stuffing the curriculum with new politically correct
requirements…."
I Told You So, Part 2: The Failure of Prop 25
Last
October, before California voters adopted the majority vote measure Prop 25, a
brilliant, devastatingly handsome young pundit warned
in this very space that the measure, whatever its merits, would make things
worse.
Wrote the pundit: "Prop 25 might make deficits worse and force
the state to do even more borrowing. To the extent Prop 25 were to have any
practical effect, it would threaten to deepen deficits. Consider this scenario:
the removal of the supermajority on budget bills makes it a little bit easier
for Democrats to support spending that they otherwise couldn’t get Republicans
to agree to by two-thirds vote. But Republicans still block tax increases to
pay for the additional Democratic spending."
Concluded the pundit: "The
result: more deficits, more gimmicks, more borrowing."
Last
week, with Republicans blocking taxes, Democrats passed a budget so full of
borrowing and gimmicks that Gov. Brown vetoed it.
State Water Resources Control Board Needs to Exert Some Self-Control
Earlier this year, many of my colleagues from the
Legislature from both parties joined me in signing a letter protesting the
State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) draft Industrial Storm Water
permit.
The SWRCB has proposed a revised storm water permit that
would require that businesses and public agencies comply with several new
requirements that are over and above what the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) mandates and will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in
additional costs with no proven environmental benefits.
Many California industries and many public agencies have
warned the costs of these proposed storm water requirements would be huge, with
no proven benefits. In addition, the SWRCB has not been willing to conduct any
cost/benefit analysis or to look at less costly alternative methods for
controlling storm water runoff.
We have urged the SWRCB to go back to the drawing board. We
requested they conduct a cost-benefit analysis of this action and substantively
engage with stakeholders.
Prop. 13 Split Roll Would Be Ripoff
Co-authored by Charles B. Warren. Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.
Democrats in the California Legislature want to repeal the property tax reassessment protections of Proposition 13 for commercial properties under the dubious notion that there is a pot of California 49er gold at the end of the rainbow. Prop. 13?s existing protections for homeowners would remain the same.
If the commercial protections are removed, this would create what’s called a “split roll”: different tax rates would apply to home and commercial property.
The vehicle being used to create split roll is AB 448. But Democrats, to twist a phrase from Mark Twain when he was in California, may find that “there’s no gold in them thar hills.”
The current system of property taxation in California under Prop. 13 is based on reassessing all properties in the state only when there is a valid sales transaction, just as capital gains taxes are paid only when stock is sold.