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Maybe I have a special affection for orphaned propositions or something, but I’m having a hard time turning this one down. It is focused on class size reduction and school supplies for K-12 education, with a bit more for safety and security measures and new construction at schools. Opponents seem to pick it apart with all kinds of arguments, many of which don’t bear up to scrutiny.

The critiques I’ve seen so far are:

1) It won’t fund new construction in most California schools. Fair enough, but this isn’t a big omnibus bond to can pay for new construction state wide. It only allocates $85 million for school construction or modernization. Most of the money is for class size reduction and teaching supplies, which most schools would qualify for.

2) Money collected in one community might get spent elsewhere. Frankly, one of the crimes of our education system is that more money is spent on education in wealthier neighbourhoods. Spend the money where it can do the most good. Fine by me.

3) It’s the first state wide tax imposed since 1910, and if it passes we’ll get more. Hey, if that means they’ll do that instead of recurring bond measures that waste tax dollars on interest payments, I’m all for it!

4) The new tax is never ending. I must have missed the memo that went out suggesting that education spending is only a short term state obligation. Furthermore, while the tax is neverending, the impact of it over time will decline due to inflation. If anything I think the proponents should have added a clause that adjusted the tax for inflation.

5) Proposition 88 gives Scaramento politicians increased power to decide where and how to spend your money. We’re talking about fifty bucks here. Yes, that’s a lot given how much we straight jacket them right now, but even those fifty bucks have a enough restrictions that I’m quite confident the money will be spent in the right places.

I’m pretty sure this one is DOA, but I’d really like to understand why I shouldn’t vote for this one.