We are facing an unmitigated disaster if either Prop 30 or Prop 38 fails to pass as California schools are now 48th in per capita spending and college tuition is beyond the reach of most people. A public school system is the backbone of any society. To help save our schools and our state, you must register to vote before October 22, 2012 to vote on November 6, 2012. You can register online today or at your County Registrar.

To register online, go to

https://rtv.sos.ca.gov/elections/register-to-vote/

To find your County Registrar, usually open 8 or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, go to

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_d.htm

When you register, be sure to also demand a permanent vote by mail (absentee) application so you can vote in every election in the comfort of your home within 29 days before election day and never forget to vote. If you register to vote at your County Registrar after October 8, 2012, you can also immediately vote absentee.

When you register, please register Peace & Freedom Party or Green Party as these 2 excellent parties need to double their registration to stay on the ballot due to the disastrous Prop 14, Top Two Primary initiative, that passed in 2010. See

1. Peace and Freedom Party

http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/

2. Green Party

http://www.cagreens.org/

http://www.gp.org/index.php

So now, let us look at Propositions 30 and 38, the two propositions that will save and improve our school system, and in the case of the former, our social services.

Proposition 30’s summary may be found at:

http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2012/general/pdf/30-title-summ-analysis.pdf

Proposition 38’s summary may be found at:

http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2012/general/pdf/38-title-summ-analysis.pdf

You will see that Proposition 30 has a progressive income tax, meaning the more you make, the more you pay and vice versa, and it starts the tax at $250,000 a year income for individuals, increasing their tax by 1%, which they can easily pay. It also has a one-quarter of a penny sales tax for 4 years, something no one will feel and yet you will be better off paying it as it pays for our starving school system and desperately needed social services for the workingclass.

Proposition 38 is more focused on schools and is a progressive income tax, appearing to start with low income wage earners BUT IN REALITY LOW INCOME WAGE EARNERS PAY NO INCOME TAX AT ALL DUE TO THE HIGH STANDARD DEDUCTION AND PERSONAL EXEMPTION. So, for example, a head of household single parent with 1 child whose income is less than $65,000 a year, pays NO STATE INCOME TAX if they just file their income tax return to get the refund. Look at your state income tax return for last year and you will see that most of us get a refund because the state personal exemption and standard deduction are high, for good reason, to stimulate spending, and it is the workingclass that spends most of what we earn.

Proposition 38’s summary states:

“Personal, dependent, senior, and other tax credits, among other factors, would continue to eliminate all tax liabilities for many lower-income tax filers even if they have income in a bracket affected by the measure’s rate increases.” AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE ABOVE EXAMPLE, $65,000 IS A THRESHOLD FOR A HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD WITH 1 CHILD.

Head of household is defined by the State of California here:

https://ftb.ca.gov/individuals/hoh/index.shtml

The California standard deduction and personal exemption for 2011 is as follows:

http://www.cchgroup.com/wordpress/index.php/tax-headlines/state-tax-headlines/california-personal-income-tax-2011-standard-deduction-personal-exemptions-and-other-amounts-released/

You can read all of the objections to these 2 propositions everywhere BUT THE CHILDREN NEED AN EDUCATION NOW, AND THE SICK, OLD AND DISABLED NEED SOCIAL SERVICES NOW.

Let’s stop the nonsense and vote for both of these and hope at least one of these 2 passes.

THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER IMPORTANT PROPOSITIONS. California voters are about to make history in abolishing the death penalty by voting for Proposition 34, joining not just the industrialized world, but most of the world, in abolishing the death penalty. When we have 26 states instead of the current 17 plus the District of Columbia, we can go to the US Supreme Court with a case that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and abolish it in the rest of this country, finally, for once and for all. Proposition 34 is not perfect, but we will have to amend it as we become a more humane society. We simply must abolish the barbaric death penalty, and the sooner, the better. We can also reduce the prison population by amending the “three strikes” law by voting for Proposition 36, so that if the third offense is just for stealing a loaf of bread, the person will not spend life in prison, thereby saving the taxpayers lots of money.

So far, it appears that the vote in California should be:

Yes on Propositions 30, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40

No on Propositions 31, 32, 33, 35