[quote=briansd1][quote=dbapig]
One more thing. I recently got to talk to a South Korean citizen about schools etc. He’s here for grad school and his son attends an elementary school. He told me he was so shocked to see cutting education budget was one of the first responses when the budget crisis hit CA. When the IMF crisis hit Asia and S Korea, govt and companies were cutting anything and everything. However even during that wrenching time, laying off teachers was never discussed. Not one teacher was laid off for budget reason.
[/quote]

As I said before, local governments want to cut services that affect most people first as a way to generate support for more taxes. They try to rile-up the soccer moms to campaign for more taxes and services for their children.

The school cuts are politically motivated. There are so many other ways to cut government spending.

I’m glad that this time, it’s not working.[/quote]

@briansd1

I read CA by law can’t cut funding to a lot of the programs/agencies/compensation (about 80% of the total budget I think). Think I heard on radio. It obviously can’t cut police/jail-guards too much. Can’t cut pension to state employees which is contractual agreement. What are the other ways to cut spending?

The soccer moms story doesn’t jive with me. The soccer moms I see are from family that own homes or relatively well off so don’t like to see increased tax. They would be last on the list of people who want higher tax, at least to me…

Anyway, if one demands adequate funding for police/fire because they provide absolutely required service to all, I’d think same goes for public education…