No Cutbacks! Tax the Rich!
1991 1991-04Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 4 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1991 The following statement was issued by Joni Jacobs, Socialist Action candidate for Mayor of San Francisco, Calif.
The right of San Francisco's children to free public education is under attack. Last month, 1,638 teachers and school staff received lay-off notices. School closures are planned, along with the elimination of most extra-curricular programs.
Governor Wilson says that with a projected $10 billion state budget deficit, California's public schools must bear their "fair share." He intends to slash public school funds by $2 billion, declaring an all-out war against the teachers' unions and our youth.
Yet in this era of so-called "budget deficits," the government just spent $46 billion to put an emir back on the throne of Kuwait, and more than $300 billion to bail out the S&L's which were raped by the rich and greedy.
Working people will pay for the war against Iraq and the S&L bailout through higher taxes and lower living standards. Yet the profits of the oil companies and banks that benefited from these expenditures go untouched. Meanwhile, our children must beg for school funding.
Quality public education is a democratic right as fundamental as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. But public education isn't our birthright. It was a victory won in a struggle to end the oppressive system of child labor. Working people, organized in their labor unions, fought to put their children in quality schools rather than in work houses and factories.
The only way to save quality public education is how it was won-through the joint, mass, independent action of everyone affected by the proposed cutbacks. Organized to fight for our own interests, we parents, teachers, students, and taxour schools.
Neither the Democrats nor Republicans can be entrusted or relied upon to save our schools. Both parties put the profits of the banks and oil companies before the needs of our children. Both parties treat public education as a political football, endangering our children's futures in the process.
We need a government that taxes war profits 100% to pay for vital social programs. We need a government that values our children's futures more than it values the profits of the oil companies.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it. Vote to put human needs before profits. Vote for Socialist Action.