Last week, Democrats passed an
“austerity” budget for California. The budget, signed by Governor
Jerry Brown, will drastically curtail funding for universities, slash
funding for services for the poor and the elderly, shutter 70 parks,
and take away money from mental health programs.
Meanwhile, it will increase taxes
working class people pay, as well as increase yearly car registration
fees. People living in areas prone to wildfires will pay $150 more a
year. Californians who shop online will pay more for buying from
Internet retailers. Fees to attend community colleges will bump up as
well.
The plight of poor and working people
only promises to get worse. By law, the Legislature must balance the
budget every year. Every year in Sacramento, California’s capital,
politicians engage in a large amount of accounting trickery and
borrowing schemes to make it appear that the budget is balanced. This
year, the Democrats claim that an extra $4 billion in tax revenue
will come into the state; there is no basis for such optimism.
Because of a law passed by voters last
year, the legislators would have lost pay if the budget was not
passed on time, so Democrats subsequently rammed through a budget
largely based on make-believe. If the extra billions of dollars in
taxes the Democrats claim will magically appear do not materialize,
“trigger cuts” will occur in which the state’s two large
university systems, California State University and the University of
California, will lose $100 million each. Programs for the sick,
disabled and working people will be cut by twice that amount.
UC and CSU budgets will be cut by a
total of $650 million not counting the “the trigger cuts.” This
is on top of an 8 percent increase in tuition hikes at UC and a 10
percent boost at Cal State, which
were already set to begin in the fall. A decade of tuition increases
has tripled costs for students at UC and CSU schools, not including
room, board and other fees. An average UC undergraduate student will
pay $1,100 more a year annually; a CSU attendee will endure a $733
increase.
Earlier in the year, Democrats passed
huge cutbacks in welfare and other social programs serving disabled
and poor people, including cash grants to the needy that have already
been sharply decreased. Redevelopment agencies that use public funds
to aid communities in need will be dismantled.
The result of this budget will be the
most severe attack on working people California has seen. The
Democrats, who are less honest about their intentions than
Republicans are, achieved more than the GOP could have imagined by
covering their reactionary proposals with faulty accounting tricks
and deliberately false optimism that in reality amounted to
ultra-cynical politics. Their goal was to cut services to the poor
and working people with the least public outcry possible.
One way in which the Democrats were
able to evade harsh public backlash was by satisfying one of their
main backers, the California Teachers Association. Education at the
K-12 level will not be cut this fiscal year, and school districts
will be barred from laying off teachers next school year according to
Assembly Bill 114, passed by the Legislature. This was achieved after
months of actions organized by the CTA and local teacher unions
throughout the state. The Legislature fears any potential disruption
to the smooth operation of the underfunded and inadequate education
system. Such a disruption, which the teachers’ unions could mount, is
not in the interest of the ruling class. The passage of AB 114 is a
victory, albeit a short-term one for teachers and students alike.
The passage of AB 114 illustrates a
problem that teachers’ unions have had for a long time. If individual
unions continue to save themselves while others are suffering attacks
by the ruling class, it will only come back and hurt them in the long
run. If a student’s parents cannot see a doctor when they are sick,
if welfare is being cut and there is not enough money to eat, if
grandparents cannot receive critical services, how are students going
to be ready to come to school every day to learn?
This bill, AB 114, saves K-12 education
for this year, but what about next year when the same budget issues
will inevitably rear their ugly heads? This year’s bill may become an
excuse to slash education next year as has been seen in years past.
What we need is more solidarity. Unions
and workers must know and understand the credo: An injury to one is
an injury to all! Only when unions unite with other sections of the
working class will our rights be protected on a more permanent basis
so we can avoid the same fights year after year. Unions must not see
themselves or act like a special interest group, but vehicles for
social justice.
