COMMENTARY | Two new voices have joined the growing chorus calling for the defeat of next June’s ballot initiative Proposition 29, a nearly $1 billion annual spending binge that threatens to cast California deeper into insolvency.
David Spady of Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit conservative political advocacy group, and Nick Johnson, of conservative website Red County, penned columns last week calling for the defeat of Proposition 29, the so-called California Cancer Research Act.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this joke before,” writes Spady in Flash Report. “Liberal politician with pet cause and bureaucracy-building desire packages up his or her idea, tells voters they can achieve some laudable goal ‘for free’ and takes it to the ballot. First Five Commission. Stem-cell research. High-speed rail. And now the latest in this sad line of ballot-box boondoggles: Proposition 29.”
Proposition 29 hikes taxes by nearly $1 billion to fund a special interest spending commission that is to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars each year on salaries, buildings and equipment. The decisions this commission makes are untouchable by voters and politicians alike for 15 years, not even in cases of waste, fraud or abuse. At a time when California is suffering from a $10-plus billion budget deficit and weighing further cuts to schools, public safety, and other necessary services it makes absolutely no sense to hand political insiders even more taxpayer money to deal out to their friends.
Already, a growing coalition of leading conservative groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, FreedomWorks, the California Taxpayers Association, and many others have already lined up against this billion dollar boondoggle. With more groups signing up each day, it looks like California voters are finally getting the picture.
As Johnson wrote in Red County, “…voters are starting to get see through the old Sacramento game of holding up a shiny new spending program funded by the appearance of ‘free money.’ The defeat of the $855 million tax increase this June will send a clear message that things have to change in Sacramento. Just vote no!”
It is hard to understand how Governor Brown can be announcing cuts in education on one hand, while he and his party are standing by this boondoggle spending measure.