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Taxpayers, Educators, Businesses & Seniors Join Together to Prevent Costly Government Takeover of Preschool

Posted on: Thursday, 12 January 2006, 21:00 CST

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The state's leading business organizations, preschool educators, taxpayer advocates, seniors and community organizations joined together today to announce a formal campaign to oppose an initiative on the June ballot that would create a costly government run and funded preschool system. The initiative, sponsored by actor/director Rob Reiner, seeks to increase personal income taxes to fund the new state-run preschool bureaucracy.

"With all the real and pressing problems facing this state, the last thing we need to do is raise taxes $2.4 billion to create a new government run bureaucracy to replace our current system of preschools," said Allan Zaremberg, President & CEO of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Representatives of the coalition said that while proponents of a government run preschool system have been campaigning for months, businesses, preschool experts, seniors, taxpayer advocates and others have just begun to examine the numerous problems contained in the ballot measure and plan an aggressive campaign to educate voters with the facts to ensure it doesn't pass.

According to the non-partisan Legislative Analyst, 66 percent of preschool age children already attend preschool in California. The government preschool measure seeks to raise taxes on many small businesses and individuals to bring that number to 70% -- at a cost of $2.4 billion per year on top of the $3 billion the state already spends subsidizing preschool for lower-income families.

"Basically, taxpayers would pay $2.4 billion in higher taxes to get four percent more of our kids into preschool," said Larry McCarthy, president of the California Taxpayers' Association. "That just doesn't seem like a very good bang for the buck. Rather than focus resources on the state's most pressing needs or helping parents of low-income families who need the most help sending their kids to preschool, this flawed measure creates a subsidy for rich and middle-income families that already send their kids to preschool."

Pre-school experts are concerned that existing quality, cost-effective programs tailored to different needs of parents and kids will be replaced with a one-size fits all state-run bureaucracy that is not accountable to local parents.

"This initiative would destroy the existing marketplace of private preschool providers, who serve 70% of all preschool children in California, and replace it with a state-run bureaucracy that would limit parental choice in early childhood education," said Pamela Zell Rigg, Ph.D., President of the California Montessori Council. "The great majority of private preschools are owned and operated by individual entrepreneurs, mostly women and minorities. The current preschool market is serving our children and parents well. It's unconscionable for the state to come in and put these preschools out of

business." STOP THE REINER INITIATIVE, A COALITION OF BUSINESS & TAXPAYER ORGANIZATIONS http://www.stopreiner.org/

McCarthy, of Cal-Tax added that a loophole in the initiative means that parents and all taxpayers could ultimately be asked to pay more to keep the program running. The initiative contains a specific provision stating that if revenues from the higher personal income taxes are not sufficient to fund the program, the legislature can impose new fees on parents of preschoolers, or the legislature could always raise taxes to fill the funding gap.

"Whenever you start an entirely new state bureaucracy like this initiative proposes, the costs always exceed initial estimates," said McCarthy. "When that happens, parents of preschool children could be charged a fee or the legislature could raise taxes on all Californians to keep the new bureaucracy going."

Concluded Zaremberg: "Encouraging more children to go to pre-school is a laudable goal, but this is simply not a good time to create a new government bureaucracy, with no accountability to parents and taxpayers. Opinion leaders and voters are just starting to wake up to this flawed initiative. Once we take the time to educate all Californians, we anticipate voters will soundly reject the measure in June."

Stop The Reiner Initiative

CONTACT: Kathy Fairbanks, +1-916-443-0872, or mobile, +1-916-813-1010,for Stop The Reiner Initiative

Web site: http://www.stopreiner.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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