Fire the Teachers, but Save the Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair!

Every day in the news: 

Raise taxes or thousands of teachers will be fired and class sizes will swell. Raise taxes or fire stations will be browned out and emergency response time compromised. Raise taxes or cops will be laid off and our streets will be more dangerous. Raise taxes or prisoners will be released and our streets will be more dangerous. Raise taxes or infrastructure work will stop and our roads and bridges will collapse. Raise taxes or our elderly will die in their homes.

The “or else” of not raising taxes is always so dire, the public, time and time again, votes to increase taxes. Annually, Californians pay billions of dollars in sales tax, property taxes, income tax and fees and still Sacramento cannot manage to provide the core, essential services taxpayers pay for and deserve.

I would love to see a front-page headline that warns “Gov. Jerry Brown Proposes Temporary Tax Hike to Save the Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair!”

Imagine our elected officials urging voters to approve tax increases to save The Dental Hygiene Committee of California or the Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation, how would we vote then?

These are real agencies.

School, fire, police, prison, elder care, infrastructure budgets are slashed but what happens to the Acupuncture Board or Court Reporters Board of California? It appears, nothing. Their websites are full of meetings, new rules and regulations, newsletters and multi-language brochures. No mention of looming budget cuts or pink slips.

There are duplicate agencies: Boating & Waterways Department and Boating & Waterways Commission. Fish & Game Department and Fish & Game Commission.

Even if there are valid reasons for the existence of these thousands of state agencies and their almost 2M state employees (with their salaries, pensions, benefits and power), at what point do we say, wait a minute, we’re broke, we’re in debt maybe some of these commissions and organizations could dissolve and we just might be okay.

Do we really need to know the New Federal Mattress Standards before purchasing a Sealy Posturepedic? Are we that hapless?

It is a code violation to have a lit candle in an office. A candle permit is needed but unattainable because they’re only issued to restaurants and places of worship. Yes, an office worker could burn the building down but the freedom to light a pumpkin spice candle while typing away on a computer, I believe, outweighs the risk.

It is against the law for an optical shop to sell just the plastic frames of eye glasses (no lenses) without a prescription though the frame has nothing to do with vision. 

It is against the law to roast chestnuts on an open fire in public without a food handler’s license. 

The American symbol of very young entrepreneurial spirit — the neighborhood lemonade stand — needs a business license to operate. Minor sons and daughters need work permits to help their parents sell produce at their family vegetable/fruit stands.

Voters are told there isn’t money for teachers, fireman, police, elder-care and infrastructure yet we don’t question why there always seems to be enough money to pay for lawyers who draft these stifling rules and regulations and for the code enforcement officers who make sure we’re in compliance.

California bureaucracies have so much money, they even over-regulate each other!

Last fall, the Chula Vista Elementary School District paid a fine, fired the Food Service Manager, had to restructure their Child Nutrition Services Department and create a more “user-friendly” menu when a California audit found the breakfasts they were serving had 17% less iron, 30% less Vitamin A and 31% fewer calories than targets set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Funds must be plentiful, we’re auditing public school breakfasts! Isn’t it enough that we’re even serving public school breakfasts, with menus no less?

In this election year, citizens have to vote against all initiatives that give the government even more money to waste. Citizens have to vote against candidates who campaign on raising taxes to “save the schools" but who are really saving non-essential commissions and agencies.

To give us more control of the money we earn and the lives we lead, we need to vote for candidates who promise to shrink government. We are a strong, creative, resourceful people or at least we used to be.

We cannot expect the government to protect everyone from everything. It’s time for the training wheels to come off our collective bicycles and for the people to start doing wheelies again. Helmets optional.