Socialist candidate Joni Jacobs: the casualties of cutbacks' "Tax the rich to pay for our schools!'

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The only way free, quality public education will be guaranteed for our children is under an economic system that puts human needs 10 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1991 The following is a speech given by Joni Jacobs, the Socialist Action candidate for mayor of San Francisco, at the April 12 Socialist Action forum titled, "Speak-out Against the Cutbacks!"

Other speakers included Tasso Geist, president of CSEA Chapter 305 (San Francisco State University) of SEIU Local 1000; and the Rev. Dorsey Blake (see speech printed below).

San Francisco's schools are facing a massive financial crisis. Experts predict that next year the entire school district will be bankrupt.

Already, over 1600 teachers and staff have received layoff notices, and the district intends to lay off at least 500 personnel. Balboa High School is slated for closure; its 1200 students will be "consolidated" into other schools. The entire teaching staff of Buena Vista elementary school has received layoff notices, and it's likely that all its fourth and fifth grade teachers will be laid off in June. The district is also planning on eliminating all extra-curricular and most elective programs, including sports, music arts, and language programs.

It's not just San Francisco's schools that are affected. Gov. Pete Wilson is proposing cutting $2 billion from the state education budget to help alleviate a projected $12 billion state budget deficit. Over 11,000 teachers and school workers state-wide have received layoff notices.

Wilson's budget cuts will mean that the state will spend an estimated $198 less per student than last year. California already ranks among the lowest states in the country on per-student spending for education, and we're going to fall further behind.

What's happened here? How could financing for schools get so bungled up? Partly it's due to a shifting of the burden. The federal government long ago shifted the burden for educating this country's children to the state level. Today, federal money accounts for only 7 percent of the education budget.

Local property taxes account for 18.8 percent of the education budget. In 1978, when California voters passed Proposition 13, they blocked the ability of local districts to raise taxes.

This means that funding for education has become concentrated at the state level. Today the state funds 61.1 percent of education. So when this money is cut by $2 billion, it's a devastating blow to every school district in the state.

Rather incarcerate than educate Gov. Wilson says that with the $12 billion budget deficit, every sector of the state must bear its "fair share" of cutbacks. However, one sacred cow that won't feel the ax of the budget cutters is the corrections system. That's slated to receive a 35 percent increase in its budget.

In 1981, there were 35,000 people in California prisons, at a cost to the state of $350 million. In 1991, California has 100,000 people in its prisons, and it's costing us $2 billion a year. In just 10 years, the budget for the corrections system has increased 5.7 times, twice as fast as the prison population. The difference-$1.65 billion— would almost cover the education budget deficit.

These are the prioritiesCalifornia would rather incarcerate its young people than educate them. In fact, that's the message throughout this country, especially with respect to the African American community.

One in four Black men between the ages of 18 and 45 are under the jurisdiction of the before profits' criminal justice system-either in prison or on probation. There are more Black men in prison than in college. Four times the percentage of Black people are in prison in the United States than in South Africa.

Another feature of Gov. Wilson's slashing of the education budget is his attempt to use the budget crisis to break the teachers' unions.

Recently, when the Richmond school district faced bankruptcy, Wilson demanded that the teachers give up their contracts and collective bargaining rights for three years before the state would bail it out.

Wilson has repeatedly remarked in the press that the problems with school budgets result from the inflated salaries of overpaid teachers. He was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying, "At a time when so many are making real sacrifices the teachers' union bosses shouldn't be exploiting California's children in pursuit of fatter paychecks."

Wilson has declared an all-out war to bust the teachers' unions, and our children's futures will be the casualties of that war.

Making the victims pay What are the solutions being offered? In Sacramento, virtually every politician-both Democrat and Republican—say that cutbacks and layoffs must occur in all state areas, including schools, and that taxes must be raised. A bipartisan committee is talking about taxing candy, magazines, dry cleaning, and all kinds of services.

quarter-cent increase in the city's sales tax to raise money to cover the education budget Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action shortfall. In other words, he wants the victims of the budget crisis to pay for it.

San Francisco already has one of the highest city sales taxes in California. And very few taxes, if any, are temporary. Once they are imposed, they are rarely removed, even when the project requiring the "temporary tax" is paid for.

One example is bridge tolls. The Golden Gate Bridge has been paid for umpteen times over; yet soon the toll will be raised to $3! The politicians figure once they get working people used to paying taxes, they'll keep taxing them at increasing rates.

Socialists are opposed to sales taxes and taxes on services, goods and gasoline because they are regressive. Because they are a flat rate, everyone pays the same amount, regardless of their income and ability to pay. What that means is that low-income people pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes than the rich do. The poor end up shouldering a disproportionate, and unfair, share of the burden.

In 1929, the bottom-earning 80 percent of Americans paid no income tax. Today, working people pay 75 percent of income taxes. The tax rates for the rich have fallen from 70 percent in the 1940s to 28 percent today.

This shifting of the tax burden has taken place through both Democratic and Republican administrations. While the most devastating shifts occurred while Reagan was president, the Democratic Party-controlled Congress passed every "tax reform" Reagan asked for—-and are just as responsible.

The wealth in this country remains ridiculously unequally distributed, and is becoming more so. In 1983, families in the top 2 percent income bracket owned 30 percent of

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San Francisco schools Superintendent Ramon Cortinez proposes a temporary one-