For the Children? Debt and Slippery Dealing

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	Prop 39 as a Business:  Gaming the System for Power and Money
	Alert readers will have noticed that our arguments against each of these bonds are almost identical.  The School Districts certainly noticed, and made a big deal of the fact in their rebuttals, calling our argument "boilerplate". This is hypocrisy on stilts.  Our arguments could be almost identical, because theirs are almost identical.  You know who wrote our text; who created the template upon which their Full Text is based? Another thing:  we have predicted in our arguments and writings that the bond oversight committees will not be selected using an objective process.  We further predicted that a predefined set of Bylaws will be pushed upon the group that is finally selected.  Why are we confident in saying this?  You can see for yourself.  Take a look at the Bylaws accepted by the Oversight Committee for the Santa Monica College District.   And the Monrovia Unified School District.   And the South Pasadena Unified School District.   And the Long Beach Community College District.   In fact, if you do a Google search on "Prop 39" and "Bylaws", you can find hundreds of schools using this exact same text for their Prop 39 Bylaws, limiting the powers of the oversight committee before it even begins to operate.  Who created the original template? We're not sure.  But we can make a pretty good guess.  Most school boards across the state have banded together in their own organization, the California School Boards Association (CSBA).  In the lower right hand corner of their website, you'll find displayed the logos of numerous "business associates" who have signed up to "support" the CSBA.  (And perhaps, just incidentally, make money from it?)  Among these "associates" you will of course find lawyers, and in finding them you find the probable authors of the templates.  (Refresh the page a few times to see the full range of companies.) Students of political science have known for centuries that the breakdown of a democratic system begins when some parts of the electorate start to understand that they have the power to vote money from the pockets of others into their own, and begin to use that power without compunction. But there is another danger.  The bureaucracy works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, living off taxes taken from the electorate, and encroaching more and more upon individual liberty.  The bureaucracy has begun to make the creation of taxes part of its day-to-day business, setting up shared systems to support the process.  The Prop 39 industry is a prime example. A strong and conscious effort on the part of the electorate will be required to oppose this growing danger.  It may already be too late to do so effectively.
	Prop 39 as a Business last revised 05/18/08.  Problems with this page?  Contact the Webmaster.