Proposition 4 Wants You to Pay for Politicians’ Campaigns

That’s the whole pitch, dressed up as “fair elections.”

Fair for whom, exactly?

For over five decades California has banned using public money to bankroll candidates. Voters put that rule in place for a very good reason: Nobody should be forced to fund the campaigns of the people who tax them.

Prop 4 would erase that ban.

That ban isn’t some dusty technicality. It came out of the Political Reform Act of 1974 and the sleaze around the CREEP payments during Watergate. The principle was simple: your tax dollars are for roads, schools, cops, and hospitals—not for paying consultants to tell you how wonderful their candidate is or how terrible his opponent looks.

Or to fund dirty political tricks.

Think about what Prop 4 means in practice. A small-business owner already struggling with high taxes and fees would now be required to help bankroll the very politician who just voted to raise them again. A parent frustrated with failing schools, such as I, would be forced to subsidize the campaign of a CTA-sponsored board member running to keep the status quo intact.

You don’t get a refund if you hate the candidate’s platform. Taxpayers on the Right will be forced to fund Leftist politicians. Taxpayers on the Left will be forced to fund Right wing politicians. You don’t get to check a box that says, “Not with my money.”

The state simply takes it and hands it over.

What’s worse is that the funding amounts, administration, and details are not even spelled out. Should it pass, the state and local governments would set up those undefined rules later. Those rules will be written, of course, by those already in charge of the place.

Prop 4 is Literally a Blank Check

Supporters say this levels the playing field. It doesn’t. It does, however, coerce you into picking up the tab for what may well be your least favorite politician.

Incumbents still get the money. Challengers still need to qualify. And every taxpayer—left, right, or checked out—ends up bankrolling attack ads and mailers for candidates they may actively despise. You don’t get to opt out. That’s not democracy.

Passage of Prop 4 would be compulsory speech enforced by taxation.

Look at the coalition pushing this thing. Common Cause. League of Women Voters. ACLU. The usual suspects who treat government expansion like a moral duty. If money buys political support, what are these groups really saying?

They’re saying private money is dirty when the other side has it, but perfectly fine when the public is forced to foot the bill. They don’t want less money in politics. They want your money redirected through the state.

Our elections already have serious problems and imbalances, and Prop 4 does nothing to fix them. California politics has the feel of a closed shop. One party owns Sacramento, most of the big cities, and the institutional machinery, thanks to powerful state sector unions that keep the whole thing running.

Competitive races are rare.

Turnout in many local contests is pathetic. When the same team holds almost every lever of power for decades, the system stops checking itself.

Meanwhile, California still acts as if requiring ID at the polls is some kind of mortal threat to democracy itself. Somehow most other democracies manage to confirm who’s voting without the sky falling. Here in the U.S., our overlords treat the absence of basic Voter ID as not only noble but also sacrosanct.

Prop 4 Doesn’t Touch Any of This

It doesn’t open up safe districts, call for voter identification, loosen the one-party hold, increase ballot integrity, or rein in ballot harvesting. It doesn’t make the process cleaner or more credible in any way.

What it does is open a new funding door: letting politicians dip into taxpayer money to pay for their own campaigns.

That’s not reform.

That’s adding another layer of self-interest to the system.

Once the public check book gets involved, the pressure to expand will never go away. The real problems stay right where they are, while a fresh set of conflicts and costs get locked in.

Vote NO on Prop 4

Every statist organization loves Prop 4. It lowers the cost of electing people who promise more programs, more rules, and more spending.

Prop 4, if passed, would be catnip for the “government is the answer to everything” crowd.

Clean money?

Please.

It’s just more tax money recycled through the untouchable political class’s hands.

Vote NO on Prop 4

California already can’t keep the lights on, house its people, or educate its kids without constant crisis, followed by requests for even more money and power. Now we’re supposed to believe the urgent priority is subsidizing political careers?

Prop 4 sells itself as “reform.”

It is anything but.

It takes a clear line—that taxpayers should not be required to fund political campaigns—and replaces it with a permanent invitation for politicians to help themselves to the public trough. Should Prop 4 pass, the same people who already run the farm will write the rules.

George Orwell saw it coming: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Don’t buy the farm, California.

Vote NO on Prop 4.

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How Long Before the Bear Turns Its Gaze on You?

Two friends are hiking when suddenly a bear appears and charges toward them. One takes off running, and his friend shouts after him, “Are you crazy? You can’t outrun a bear!”

Without slowing down, he yells back, “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.”

Funny joke. Unless you live in California. After all, what animal is on our state flag?

Keep that thought.

Everyone Gets a B

There’s a political parable that has circulated for years. A liberal college student comes home for winter break complaining to her conservative father about how hard she works. She attends every class, studies constantly, and sacrifices nights and weekends. Her reward is a 4.0 GPA.

Her father asks about one of her friends. “She has a 2.0,” the daughter tells him. “She skips classes and parties.”

Her father offers a solution. “Why don’t you ask the dean to take one point from your GPA and give it to her? Then you’ll both have a 3.0. That would be equal.”

She’s furious. “Why would I do that? I worked hard for my grades. She did nothing. That’s not fair.”

Her father smiles. “Welcome to the Republican Party.”

Apparently, redistribution becomes considerably less attractive when somebody wants to redistribute your hard-earned success.

What Is Socialism?

Of course, a GPA isn’t money, but the parable makes a simple point: redistribution looks different when they’re taking what belongs to you.

Socialism is a political-economic system in which major resources and industries are owned, controlled, or substantially directed collectively, typically through the state, workers, or public institutions.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) calls for “aggressive wealth taxes on the richest individuals and corporations,” along with public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries. California carries the message “Tax the Rich,” proposing a 5% billionaire wealth tax.

Congratulations on Your Success

But who are “the rich”? Don’t worry. Right now, they’re talking about billionaires, and you aren’t a billionaire, are you?

Then relax and go back to work. Open your restaurant. Start your plumbing company. Build your real-estate business. Open a gym. Mortgage your house to keep the business alive. Hire employees. Work weekends. Skip vacations. Make payroll during recessions. Save instead of spending.

Perhaps all that sacrifice pays off, and you become successful.

Congratulations.

Now you’re becoming a target.

Back When the Income Tax Was 1%

But don’t worry. They’re only targeting billionaires.

Consider 1913. After ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1913. The new federal income tax primarily targeted high-income Americans. The normal rate was just 1%, if you made roughly $135,000 in today’s dollar value for a married couple.

Relax. They were only taxing the rich.

And is the federal income tax still 1%?

Relax, you’re not on the bear’s menu. Yet.

So, Who Is Rich Today?

Here in Santa Barbara, a family of four earning around $140,000 can fall within HUD’s low-income limits. Middle income reaches toward $190,000, while upper-middle income can approach $237,000, all above the $135,000 equivalent that triggered the 1913 income tax.

And of course it’s no longer 1% tax, it’s a 22% tax for the same income bracket.

These aren’t people lounging aboard superyachts. They’re paying mortgages or rent, groceries, insurance, utilities, tuition, and California taxes, while wondering how they can be living paycheck to paycheck and somehow be considered “wealthy.”

But don’t worry. Nobody is coming for them.

Well, at least until all the rich leave.

Meet the Socialists Next Door

Think this political movement is somewhere else? Look around.

Locally, Wendy Santamaria, Santa Barbara City Council District 1, was DSA-endorsed in 2024.

Oscar Gutierrez, District 3, was also DSA-endorsed.

Helena Pasquarella, a 2026 candidate for Congress in California’s 24th District, has been identified as a DSA member and endorsed by Ventura County DSA.

Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps’ 2022 campaign participated in an Isla Vista canvas organized with UCSB Young Democratic Socialists of America.

Socialist political organizing is here and taking root.

Don’t think Santa Barbara is isolated from policies taking hold elsewhere. Look at policies such as rent freeze, which would affect everyday mom-and-pop property owners, the primary owners of rental properties here, your neighbors. And all to address a century-old housing problem that our city has never meaningfully addressed.

It goes much deeper, but most people would rather not open their eyes and look.

The Rich Can Outrun the Bear

California recently lost roughly $12 billion in net adjusted gross income through interstate migration in a single tax year. Now California is proposing another tax on billionaire wealth.

I’m sure they’ll happily hand over another 5%.

Not.

They don’t have to disappear from California. They can establish residency elsewhere while still owning homes here and enjoying California. Their taxable income, however, can move with them. Suddenly Nevada, Texas, and Florida start looking very inviting.

Reality check: when taxpayers leave, the programs don’t. The bureaucracy doesn’t leave. The pensions don’t leave. The spending doesn’t leave. The tens of billions spent on services for illegal aliens don’t stop. The high-speed rail to nowhere spending doesn’t stop. The billions spent on homelessness without any meaningful impact and inadequate tracking of outcomes don’t stop.

Reckless government spending. Plain and simple. After all it’s not their money.

And you still have to pay the bill.

Yesterday, it was the billionaire. Tomorrow, it’ll be the millionaire.

Own a home in Santa Barbara? Checked your property value lately?

Then perhaps it’s you.

As deficits grow and taxable income leaves California, our own town will look for more money from the people who remain.

Like an addict looking for the next fix, the spending continues. Only the source of the money changes.

Back to the Woods

Remember our hikers. The billionaire doesn’t have to defeat California. He just has to establish residency somewhere else and take his taxable income with him.

Every person who escapes leaves one fewer taxpayer between you and the bear.

Helping someone with your own money, food, and time, is generosity. Government spending your money on a railroad to nowhere is something else entirely.

Look around the woods and notice who’s already running.

Californication

And one final thought. California politics and policies don’t always stay in California.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers may have put it best:

“And tidal waves couldn’t save the world from Californication.”

So, look around.

How long before the bear turns its gaze on you?

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The Boy Who Cried “Temporary!”

Prop 3 is not a new school-funding measure. It is the final act in a long confidence game, a tax that began life as temporary, was later extended, and now seeks permanence under the soft lighting of “children’s education and health care.” It is a classic fable of institutional self-interest dressed in the language of compassion. Every California public school should teach this story as a warning.

None will.

Without the ignorant and gullible public, it wouldn’t work.

In 2012, voters approved Proposition 30, marketed as “Temporary Taxes to Fund Education.” The first word was the tell. Governor Jerry Brown and the California Teachers Association (CTA) sold it as a short-term bridge across a $6 billion recession shortfall. High earners would pay a bit more; the sales tax would rise a quarter-cent; the money would “protect” California classrooms. It passed with 55 percent of the vote.

“Temporary,” they said. “Trust us,” they said.

Four years later the CTA returned with Prop 55. This same coalition that had educated much of the electorate now asked that electorate to extend the income-tax rates through 2030. Proposition 55 passed with 63 percent. The “temporary” measure easily becomes a medium-term one.

The pattern was set: declare “crisis,” extract money, declare new crisis, extract again.

Now Comes Proposition 3

It’s billed as the California Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act. Its purpose is simple: remove the expiration date on Prop 30. What began as temporary and was then prolonged would, under the new Prop 3, become permanent.

Shakespeare understood this move.

In Macbeth he warned us of those who “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” Prop 3 is that flower covered serpent: wrapped in the soft language of children’s education and health care, while delivering a permanent tax increase that serves the adults who administer it, not the students in whose name it is advanced.

The numbers are enormous. Since 2012 the higher rates have generated more than $120 billion, according to the California State Controller’s office. That is twenty times the original shortfall Brown cited.

Twenty times.

Let that sink in.

This is one of the largest, if not the largest, temporary to permanent tax in California history. Should voters naively approve Prop 3, enhanced tax receipts on the order of billions of dollars a year will only grow with inflation and will continue forever.

And what did California receive for the money?

Fourth-grade reading scores on the national assessment have essentially flatlined. In 2012 the average was 213 (out of 500); in 2024 it was 212. Math moved from 234 to 233 (also out of 500). State proficiency rates tell the same story. Roughly half of students met English standards in 2012; today the figure remains stubbornly below that peak. Math proficiency has recovered only partially and still sits under 40 percent. Meanwhile the public-school system has lost roughly half a million students since the original temporary tax passed. Fewer children. No clear gains in mastery. Larger tax bill for Californians. And there is no certainty that standards haven’t been lowered to avoid embarrassment.

Where did the money go? Classroom teachers saw nominal salary growth that modestly outpaced inflation. The average for a tenured teacher now sits just above $103,000. Good money for a tough job of which California has many. Median teacher pay – which includes a summer holiday – is 40% more than California’s median income.

Yet this is not the main story.

Bureaucrats and Administrators Win Again

The dominant beneficiaries of billions in tax revenue have been administrators. Their ranks and pay expanded even as enrollment shrank. Principal and district-level salaries commonly reach $250,000 in most California districts to well over $500,000 in others.

For example, since the passage of Prop 30 in 2012, the Cajon Valley Union school district academic outcomes have continued to decline. The results for this district are currently among the lower-performing mid-sized districts in California. Less than a third of the district students read at grade level. Less than a quarter of the students are proficient in math.

Yet poor outcomes have not stopped district administrators from becoming richly compensated. Superintendent David Miyashiro who has presided over much of his district’s academic decline since 2012 took home $592,416 in total compensation in 2024.

This is the Boy Who Cried Wolf in institutional form. First the wolf was a recession shortfall. Then it was the risk of “devastating cuts.” Now it is the expiration of a tax that was never supposed to last. Each time the shepherds—CTA union leadership, school administrators and their political allies—have “sounded the alarm,” and each time a majority of voters were suckered in.

The flock (student enrollment) grows thinner.

The shepherds (bureaucrats) grow fatter.

No one (be it the voters or the students) is the wiser.

The CTA’s interest is not mysterious. More revenue means more leverage in contract negotiations, more positions, more dues, and more power over an increasingly undereducated electorate.

More of everything except higher educational outcomes.

If the goal were higher reading and math scores, the last fourteen years of elevated revenue would have produced visible results.

They have not.

If the goal were simply to keep the lights on for a shrinking student body, the scale of the haul would still look excessive. Institutional growth and excess compensation have absorbed the resources that voters had intended to be used to improve student outcomes.

California voters have been patient. They have accepted the “temporary.” They then accepted the extension. The question before them now is whether they will accept the permanent version of the same fairy tale. The fable warns that the boy who cries wolf eventually loses the trust of the village. Prop 3 proponents have lost that trust. Don’t be fooled a third time.

The permanent tax increase of Prop 3 will be wrapped in the soft language of “protecting the vulnerable.” Look under the innocent flower to the “serpent under’t”. The record is clearly visible in test scores, enrollment figures, and salary schedules.

Vote NO on Prop 3

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Proposition 2 Doubles California’s Already Bloated Slush Fund

Like all good political deception, the case for Proposition 2, formally known as the Budget Stabilization Account Cap Increase and Gann Limit Changes Amendment, includes a note of truth. California’s tax revenues do swing wildly.

That truth has been twisted by supporters of Prop 2 into a call for the doubling of the amount put aside for “emergencies” or other “unexpected” occurrences. “It’s just a sensible ‘rainy day’ measure,” they say. But if one looks into the proposal, they’ll find that description holds no water.

The real score?

Proposition 2’s passage would create a supersized slush fund out of which billions of unaccountable spending will pour. Its passage will amend the state’s constitution and allow legislators to spend an additional $20 to $25 billion however, whenever, and on whomever they see fit.

Proposition 2 would raise the cap on California’s Budget Stabilization Account from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of General Fund revenues. In boom years, this would create an extra $20 billion to $25 billion of taxpayer funds which sits outside the usual spending constraints. Prop 2’s architecture is that of a huge discretionary reserve under the control of the same people who have spent the past decade treating every surplus as permanent and every shortfall as a reason for additional taxation.

“It’s a Fiscal Emergency!” Really?

The coalition of big spenders advancing Proposition 2 includes Governor Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly member Jesse Gabriel. None are fiscal conservatives who have recently discovered the virtues of restraint. They are counting on a simple marketing strategy to float this idea in November and hope that most voters won’t read the deadly boring small print. Or have forgotten how Sacramento works.

If this constitutional amendment passes, don’t be surprised to find an increase in California’s “Rainy Days.” The process for accessing these funds is easy: the governor simply cries out “emergency” and a simple majority of votes in the legislature releases the money into the general fund.

In the 2024/25 fiscal year, $5 Billion poured out. In the 2025/2026 fiscal year, another $7.1 Billion was drained. A “fiscal emergency” were the governor’s magic words to unlock billions.

Anyone recall the emergency?

California already has mechanisms intended to capture surplus revenue. Proposition 98’s education guarantee and the Gann Limit already impose a degree of discipline on budget spending. Proposition 2 provides the wiggle room to sidestep this established framework by placing enormous sums outside those mandated spending limits. The practical effect of Prop 2 would be less voter influence over a much larger pot of money, rather than tighter control.

Under Prop 2, every time a “rainy day” occurs, California taxpayers will get soaked.

Recurring “Inconveniences”

The scale of the additional slush fund capacity is worthy of perspective. During COVID, the Employment Development Department is estimated to have lost around $20 billion to unemployment fraud. Problems in Medi-Cal provider fraud, In-Home Supportive Services, and homelessness programs, have produced documented losses with estimates of ongoing leakage that run into the billions each year. The state has, on more than one occasion, found itself unable to track outcomes for tens of billions spent on homelessness. Rather than address these billion-dollar leaks with any great urgency, Sacramento politicians are hoping to divert more taxpayer funds under their own control and less public scrutiny.

If the genuine goal were budget stability, one might expect at least some attention to the tax structure that produces the swings or addressing the administrative failures that allow so much of the money to escape once collected.

Large-scale fraud should not be treated as a recurring inconvenience, Yet no structural repair of the budget process appears anywhere in the current Prop 2 proposal.

What Prop 2 does feature is a larger claim on future capital-gains receipts and unencumbered freedom in their subsequent (mis)use.

Way back in 1972 Albert Hammond channeled California’s rainy days as a way to contrast deceptive marketing with the hidden, grim reality beneath it:

“It never rains in California,

But girl, don’t they warn ya?

It pours. Man, it pours.“

Proposition 2 doesn’t fix the plumbing or repair California’s leaky financial roof. It simply pours billions of unaccountable dollars into the hands of the same spend-happy politicians who’ve squandered it before.

Vote NO on Proposition 2.

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(Editor’s Note: This November, California’s electorate will decide on 14 new measures packaged as Propositions. Some are straightforward. Most are not. They come wrapped in carefully chosen titles, emotional appeals, and selective details that can make the real trade-offs hard to see.

In order to give you better tools with which to understand and influence the elections and policies shaping our state, California Current will dig into each of these propositions. We will look at what they actually propose, where the money goes, who is pushing them, and what sits beneath the surface. The goal is simple: help readers make clearer, more informed choices rather than voting on branding alone.

As with all our articles, readers are welcome to comment and share. – J.F.)

Prop 1: Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act

Beware the very first proposition you’ll see on your November ballot.

It’s a con job.

Don’t fall for it.

Democrat legislators named Prop 1 the “Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026” to make it sound noble; it’s anything but.

Prop 1 proposes borrowing a mere $11.25 billion from taxpayers “for our veterans.”

I would say “Hah,” but this is no laughing matter.

And, just so you know who’s behind this charade, Santa Barbara’s own California Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, along with her partner in crime, Democrat Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and the usual Democrat leadership put it there. Governor Newsom signed off.

If you think “Veterans” are at the heart of this fraud, you’d be mistaken. Here’s the actual split: roughly $1.25 billion is set aside to support CalVet home loans, just one ninth of the total raise.

The other $10 billion? Multifamily subsidies, “supportive housing,” farmworker projects, student beds, tribal grants, and something called “innovation funds,” whatever that means.

Veterans are given top billing on the bond. The housing industrial complex, filled with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) whose leadership lives off their quarter-million-dollar-plus salaries, pocket the vast majority of the money. Taxpayers get the bill, with interest.

We’ve Seen This Movie Before

The same “veteran” bait-and-switch was successfully exploited in 2018’s Proposition 1 and before that, in 2014’s Proposition 41.

Both passed.

Both spent the money, pouring a total of $4.6 billion into local government agencies and NGOs.

The small units those programs produced routinely cost $400,000 to well over $500,000 each. That’s multiples of what private builders spend on similar construction. Prevailing wage rules, layered requirements, and California’s special brand of process make sure the costs stay ridiculously high.

And the results? Homelessness keeps rising. Rents keep climbing. The shortage never budges. The bureaucracy gets bigger. The nonprofits and connected developers do just fine.

That same crowd, with the same fraudulent intent, is back with another multi-billion-dollar ask, once again hiding behind veterans.

Just as California’s film business hacks pump out sequel after sequel to any and every successful movie, California’s political flunkies re-animate Propositions over and over again no mater the original Proposition’s outcome.

The pattern is obvious once you look.

Take a group that actually sacrifice for this country – military veterans, law enforcement officers, firefighters – and wheel them out so voters will feel bad about saying no to more debt and more of the same failed programs. The only winner in this make-believe façade is the permanent progressive infrastructure of overpaid bureaucrats, nonprofits, housing authorities, and regulated developers.

Point this out and suddenly you’re the one who lacks compassion.

Central Valley Republican Senator Shannon Grove, an Army veteran herself, called the Prop 1 packaging “shameful.” She says it’s “a homeless bond with a veterans garnish.” She is right. Underneath the marketing it’s the same product: hundreds of millions a year in new General Fund debt service for decades, more money shoved through the same channels that already make housing scarce, and zero serious confrontation with California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) delays, zoning restrictions, or the glacial public process that gums everything up.

What’s missing is more revealing than what’s in the measure. California’s housing authorities already control thousands of public units. Los Angeles alone manages more than 6,000. Those should be prioritized for veterans through preference, renovation, or structured transfers that actually create ownership opportunities. That would give people who served but who have been left behind a shot at the American Dream, a real choice instead of another waiting list where other people inevitably cut ahead. But that would mean admitting the existing public model has failed. Progressives won’t go there. Their answer is always the same: more borrowing, more taxes, more programs under their control.

Proposition 1 won’t even begin to fix the housing shortage. It leaves the rules and costs that created the shortage untouched. It piles on more debt. And it uses the prestige of people who have actually served honorably to paper over a system that keeps failing.

The troops deserve better than to be marketing fodder for yet another worthless progressive bond.

Prop 1 isn’t about “Saving Private Ryan”. It a modern, dystopian version of “The Sting”, without any of the charm or good looks of Robert Redford and Paul Newman and where the hapless marks are millions of California taxpayers.

Vote NO on Proposition 1.

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Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha To Be California State Holidays

Leave it to the clowns in Sacramento to turn a simple question of school calendars into another master class in selective pandering. Assembly Bill 2017, rammed through with the eager backing of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Assemblymember Matt Haney, aims to make Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha official state holidays. Schools could slam shut, kids get free excused absences, state workers pocket the day off, and every classroom in the state gets nudged toward “educational activities” on the Islamic observances—whether your family gives a damn or not.

This isn’t about letting kids miss school for grandma’s funeral or a genuine religious obligation. California already has that covered with excused absences for sincere beliefs. No one’s forcing Muslim families to choose between faith and truancy. AB 2017 is pure symbolism—a shiny trophy for one pressure group at the expense of everyone else’s common sense.

The numbers make the hypocrisy laughable. California’s Jewish population dwarfs its Muslim one—roughly double, by solid estimates. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur aren’t some niche observances; they’re the beating heart of Jewish religious life, days of atonement and community that have carried the faith through hell and high water. Yet crickets from the equity warriors. Especially rich timing, with antisemitic garbage spiking and Jewish schools and synagogues beefing up security. If this is about demographics or “inclusion,” the math doesn’t add up. It’s selective favoritism, plain and simple.

Multiculturism: California’s One-Way Thoroughfare

This is textbook leftist pandering, greased by the red-green alliance—the cozy hookup between identity-obsessed progressives and Islamist advocates who know exactly which buttons to push. The left loves nothing more than lecturing the rest of us about diversity while kicking traditional American norms to the curb. CAIR and company demand accommodations here that they’d never extend in reverse. Try floating Christmas closures or Yom Kippur state holidays in any of the Muslim-majority spots overseas.

Good luck with that.

Multiculturalism California-style is a one-way street: bend over backward, get called bigot if you push back, and never expect the same courtesy in return.

The multicultural fantasy has always been a mirage. It preaches endless tolerance but ignores the asymmetry. California’s Christian-rooted holidays—like Christmas—aren’t some dusty sectarian leftovers. They grew out of the Western, Judeo-Christian soil that built this state: its laws, its calendar, its public rhythms. Over time they have become broadly cultural, giving most folks a shared breather regardless of personal belief. They’re the organic baseline, not some unfair perk. Diluting or subordinating that heritage to every new demand doesn’t create pluralism. It erodes the cultural glue that lets real diversity function.

The Assembly has already rubber-stamped this thing 64-1, proving how deeply the fix is in. Now it’s trudging through the Senate Education and Appropriations committees, with fresh amendments and a floor vote likely on the horizon.

Taxpayers, parents, and local school boards should be paying attention—the Sacramento freight train rarely slows down once it gets rolling.

This Bill Should Die

Nobody is saying that Muslim families can’t observe their holidays. They can and should. But turning public institutions into vehicles for official religious elevation, complete with curriculum nudges, crosses into territory government has no business entering. Local districts already juggle these issues through bargaining and common sense. Statewide mandates just invite more costs, more chaos, and more endless claims from the next group with a good lobbyist.

Sacramento’s identity-politics crowd never misses a chance to thump the DEI drum, yet here they are, stone deaf to Jewish concerns and the broader heritage that shaped California. The red-green alliance knows how this game works: progressives get to feel virtuous, advocates get their wins, and the rest of us get higher taxes, disrupted schools, and the quiet sense that some faiths are more equal than others.

Kill this bill. Californians deserve straight talk and equal rules, not another round of multicultural theater that only runs in one direction. Real pluralism means neutrality under the law, reciprocity where it counts, and respect for the culture that actually built this place—not its slow-motion surrender.

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When SpaceX went public, much of the media focused on one headline: Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire.

It is a remarkable achievement and certainly newsworthy. But I believe most of the media missed the much bigger story. According to reports, approximately 4,400 SpaceX employees became millionaires through company stock ownership.

Think about that for a moment.

Not 4,400 venture capitalists. Not 4,400 hedge fund managers. Not 4,400 Silicon Valley executives. The 4,400 employees included not only scientists and engineers but also welders, electricians, machinists, technicians, mechanics, and quality inspectors. They were the skilled tradespeople who helped build one of the most advanced manufacturing companies in human history.

That is the real American Dream story, and it is the one we should be talking about.

For decades, America created wealth this way. The auto, aerospace, shipbuilding, defense, and computer revolutions, generated prosperity that spread far beyond corporate boardrooms. Engineers, technicians, and skilled laborers shared in the success of the companies they helped build.

Somewhere along the way, we began treating manufacturing as yesterday’s economy and software as tomorrow’s. SpaceX brings us back to our American roots. Unlike many Silicon Valley success stories, SpaceX doesn’t simply write code. It builds things.

Every one of those activities requires thousands of skilled workers. As an engineer, my job was never to replace skilled labor. My job was to make skilled labor more productive. I have worked on the nation’s most complex defense systems. During my Navy career, I led teams supporting ballistic missile defense missions that launched multiple test vehicles into space. I have worked alongside the country’s brightest engineers.

I have also worked alongside thousands of technicians, mechanics, electricians, welders, quality inspectors, logisticians, and skilled tradespeople who made those missions possible.

A billionaire doesn’t build a rocket.

A software engineer doesn’t build a rocket.

A rocket is built by a team.

That relationship between engineering and skilled labor made America the most technologically advanced nation on Earth.

Scientists discover.

Engineers design.

Technicians implement.

Skilled labor builds.

When all four work together, extraordinary things happen. That is why California should pay attention to what is happening around us. California remains one of the world’s great innovation centers. We still have extraordinary universities, venture capital, entrepreneurs, and talent. We helped invent the modern technology economy.

But leadership is never permanent. Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin, and SpaceX moved its headquarters to Texas. While important manufacturing remains in Hawthorne today, nearly all of SpaceX’s major new investments, including Starship, Starbase, and the company’s headquarters, are occurring in Texas. California should not assume tomorrow’s manufacturing will automatically remain here.

An increasing number of manufacturing, energy, and technology companies are choosing to expand in states that are actively competing for industrial investment. The question is not whether California will continue producing ideas. The question is whether California will continue producing things.

Innovation creates inventions. Manufacturing creates middle-class wealth.

We launch rockets from Vandenberg. We have UCSB. We have Cal Poly. We have one of the nation’s best skilled trade workforces. We have aerospace expertise, defense infrastructure, and venture capital, just a few hours away. If any place in America should become the next center of aerospace and advanced manufacturing, it should be the Central Coast.

We are the launchpad for someone else’s prosperity, while much of the economic opportunity is being created elsewhere.

We are watching other states aggressively compete for those opportunities. Austin is increasingly positioning itself as a challenger to Silicon Valley. Texas is not just attracting headquarters. It is attracting factories, manufacturing, investment, and talent.

California is approaching an economic tipping point.

We can continue making California less competitive for advanced manufacturing, energy, and industry, or we can recommit to producing things.

The future of manufacturing is not yesterday’s smokestacks. It is clean rooms, robotics, aerospace, semiconductors, and advanced energy.

The lesson of SpaceX is not that Elon Musk became ultra-wealthy. The lesson is that 4,400 employees became wealthy alongside him. Unlike many Silicon Valley IPOs, in which much of the wealth accrued to founders, executives, and software engineers, SpaceX created extraordinary wealth for a much broader manufacturing workforce, including skilled trades.

We did not even court SpaceX to build manufacturing facilities here on the Central Coast, even though we conduct nearly 100% of their polar orbit launches.

Think about what that means:

A welder paid off his mortgage.

An electrician sent a daughter to college debt-free.

A machinist started a small business.

A technician became financially independent.

A young family bought its first home.

That is what happens when America makes things.

California did not become the world’s technology leader by accident. We earned that position by producing the technologies, products, energy, and industries that changed the world. The question is not whether we still lead today. It is whether we are making the decisions that will allow us to keep leading tomorrow.

Otherwise, we will keep launching someone else’s future.

•••

Bob Smith is a retired Navy veteran and candidate for California’s 24th Congressional District.

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Happy Birthday, USA!

Today, we celebrate the day in 1776 that The Declaration of Independence was signed and made public. This was a seditious instrument, shaped and written by Thomas Jefferson (with the advice and consent of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, Founding Fathers all). What these men did (some 56 brave men with much to lose eventually signed the document) when they put their names on it 250 years ago, was to have signed their own death warrant if their act of rebellion had not led to a successful conclusion against the mighty empire of Great Britain.

Lucky for them (and us) their effort succeeded.

Today, we at Santa Barbara Current celebrate the launch of the first edition of California Current, which we plan to publish once a week, most likely on Saturday.

Why are we doing this, you ask?

The reason is simple: Santa Barbara Current is an outlier, a righteous raft afloat in a sea of flotsam controlled by clueless UCSB grads, gluttonous government unions, and selfish scions of various local political dynasties. And, unfortunately, the City of Santa Barbara is a well-supplied outpost for radical governance even more deep-seated than its more populated cousins in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

We have hope that our efforts to help overturn the misguided policies of the cabal that has a stranglehold on politics in this city will ultimately be successful. But, until the state of California gets out from under the power and influence of the veto-proof super majority of Democrats in the state legislature, our efforts in tiny Santa Barbara will be for naught.

So, we’re launching California Current to give the sane, reasonable, and responsible citizens of California additional tools with which to understand and influence the elections and policies shaping (or, we should say, mis-shaping) this state. Our once-a-week publication will be devoted to all things California; we may even feature dispatches from our bigger cousins in L.A. and San Francisco.

We hope too that after reading our latest offering you’ll offer up your own opinions and comments in agreement or disagreement; a conflict of ideas always makes for thought-provoking discussion and often creates closer bonds between readers and writers.

The California Legislature

As the ballot for the upcoming November 3rd mid-term election takes shape, it has become obvious that we are in the battle of our lives. The group of ever-more radical Democrat office holders in the state legislature regularly pass more than a thousand bills each year. Almost every one of those bills are signed by the (Democrat) governor and nearly all include additional spending.

As of early July, here is what “voters” (and we use that word suspiciously, as millions of easily altered ballots are mailed to addresses indiscriminately throughout the state) will be faced with:

• A proposition by the State Legislature to provide public funds to qualifying candidates who agree to spending limits and other rules. In other words, free money for politicians, paid for by taxpayers.

• An Initiative to increase the cap on California’s so-called “rainy-day fund” from 10% of the budget to 20%. Oh, and by virtue of raising that cap, those monies become exempt from the Gann spending limit. In other words, there is likely to be way more “rainy days” in coming years. They’ll spend the money.

• Lots of new bond initiatives that will increase the budget deficit substantially. An $11.25 billion bond, for instance, targeted to “multi-family housing and youth housing programs.” Oh, and some of that money is supposed to go to veterans too.

The Voter ID and Citizenship Verification initiative would require government-issued photo ID at polls or for mail-in ballots, and would provide free voter ID cards. It would also mandate annual citizenship verification reporting by election officials. We are skeptical that the current government would be assiduous in verifying anyone’s “citizenship,” and we don’t understand how this could work to deter voter fraud, since anyone here legally or otherwise can easily apply for and receive a driver’s license, good for a photo ID. But, I guess it’s a start towards more honest elections if it passes.

Another initiative will set timelines and limits for environmental reviews of certain “essential” projects (housing, transportation, water, energy, health/safety infrastructure) to speed approvals and limit litigation. It sounds good, but is not likely to produce any real results until the makeup of the legislature and the various city and county planning departments change.

Plenty of New Taxes On The Way

The “One-Time Wealth Tax on Billionaires” imposes a tax (up to 5%) on certain assets over $1 billion for individuals and trusts. The money is slated to be directed to “healthcare, education, and food assistance,” but if you believe that, well, just don’t believe that. The money will go to pay ever higher salaries and bigger benefits for government workers. We do believe there are more non-billionaires in the state than there are billionaires, so this could pass. Governor Newsom says he won’t sign it, but don’t count on that.

And, if you think this wealth tax will stop at “billionaires,” you’d be wrong.

Another initiative will make permanent the additional income taxes on high earners that was passed in 2012 and slated to (ha, ha) expire in 2031). The money is earmarked “to fund K-12 schools, community colleges, and related programs.” Again, it will do no such thing. The money will fund ever higher salaries and bigger benefits for government employees.

The Second Mortgage / Homebuyer Loan Program will authorize up to $25 billion in bonds for a “second-mortgage assistance program for middle-income first-time buyers of new/qualified homes.” Most likely, many of those “middle-income” buyers will be government employees or friends and/or relatives of government employees.

Another $8.4 billion is being asked to pay for a UC-affiliated research institute and grants focused on immune-system treatments for diseases like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s, with pricing requirements for resulting drugs. Whoop de doo.

Local Measures

Santa Barbara and other counties, cities, and districts will also have their own local propositions/bonds (e.g., school funding, zoning, taxes). All of which means more and higher taxes for you.

Official Resources

If you want to stay updated and to read the full texts, summaries, fiscal analyses, and arguments of everything on your ballot, go on to the California Secretary of State’s Qualified Ballot Measures page (sos.ca.gov); the upcoming Official Voter Information Guide. Ballotpedia also has detailed pages.

For the most current list on your ballot, visit sos.ca.gov/elections or you can try your luck at Joe Holland’s Registry office and hope to find someone working there. It’s not likely, but, hey, a little optimism is in order. If you want to see how liberals and Democrats feel about the issues, voter guides from the League of Women Voters or CalMatters will be available.

See you next week!

•••

…these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States… And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. – Thomas Jefferson

…But whatever is our fate, be assured this Declaration will stand; it may cost blood, but it will stand; it may cost treasure, but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. – John Adams

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