California Taxes

My blog used to have just two readers, and I wrote a lot of random stuff. These days I seem to have acquired some 30 readers or so, and I feel a bit of pressure to make these posts actually interesting. That tends to reduce the number of postings, which of course is not a bad thing for readers, but isn’t really what I want to do with the blog. So I’m going to continue trying to write more posts, even if they aren’t interesting. My apologize to those who prefer quality.

Anyhow, recently in Berkeley there were a lot of protests about cuts in the California university system. In the 1960’s California provided a free university education to state residents who met the entrance qualifications (as of course many European countries do). Tuition in the University of California system is now over $12,000 a year. That’s quite a change.

This change is due to the broken California budget process. Raising taxes in California requires a 2/3 majority vote in the legislature. To get around that, many politically desirable projects are implemented using ballot questions which call for issuing bonds to raise the necessary money. The money raised from the bonds can only be used for the specified purpose. The interest on the bonds is paid out of general tax receipts. The effect is that the general fund is split up more and more into specific projects, draining funds from other projects. The specific projects which are funded are the ones which can get a ballot measure passed. Votes on those ballot measures are weighing a specific good—whatever the measure is about—against a general harm—future restrictions on budgeting. There is very little thought given to weighing different choices. In effect the process short-circuits the point of a representative democracy, which is to vote for people who can take the time to make good decisions on these difficult choices.

Back in Berkeley, the protests generally argued that the tuition increases were unacceptable because of the harm to the education and to the student body. I can understand their anger and frustration. But I don’t understand their tactics. If there is not enough money for education, then you have to raise more money or you have to spend less money. At the state level there aren’t really any other options. The citizens of California have made choices over the years, through a series of ballot measures, which ensure that the amount of money available for education will fall over time. This was hidden for some years by the economic boom in Silicon Valley, and the revenue shortfall has been exaggerated by the recession, but I tend to think that the effect is real in the long run. Of course few people consciously thought that, e.g., restricting fuel taxes to only be used for transportation would have the effect of reducing spending on education, but it does.

It seems to me that a rational protest would have involved some attempt to adjust the way that the state handles funding. Instead, what I see on, e.g., campusactivism.org, is a quote like “if there’s money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?” Setting aside the fact that no California state money is being used to pay for wars or bank bailouts, there is no money for public education because that is what the voters have chosen. It seems to me that useful protests should try to draw these connections for people, rather than just relying on unfocused resistance to the cuts.

I think it’s a shame that the University of California system is moving out of reach of many families. It’s a shame because everybody deserves access to a good education. It’s also a shame because U.S. economic success these days depends upon a well educated work force. But I don’t see any way to fix the problem without fixing a great deal more about how the state runs. I don’t think the state is going to get fixed short of a real crisis, and we’re not there yet. For now I think it’s inevitable that the University of California system is going to shrink, and I expect that the state will be paying for that indirectly for many years to come.