Rarely do ballot measures present as important or challenging a choice as Propositions 30 and 38 on the Nov.6 ballot. Both would levy taxes, and both promise help for public schools, which most Californians realize are crucial to the state’s economy.

In fact, California’s financial stability may be at stake in this election. The wrong tax directing money in the wrong way could speed the state’s decline.

We are reluctant to recommend raising any taxes during this plodding economic recovery. We are particularly hesitant to recommend a “yes” on such a proposition because we know that many of the financial wounds being suffered in California are self-inflicted, largely by elected officials who simply don’t know how to say no to any influential interest group, be they public employees, business, labor unions or environmental groups.

via Updated: October 21, 2012 7:24:07 AM PDT.

By Louis Freedberg

If you are confused about the differences between Propositions 30 and 38, the competing initiatives that will raise billions of dollars for California public schools, you are not alone.

The initiatives deal with what is arguably the most complex public policy issue in California today – how our public schools are financed.

To help reduce voter confusion, EdSource, founded 35 years ago to clarify complex education issues, has for the first time produced a visually appealing infographic – in this case to clarify for voters the main similarities and differences between the two initiatives.

via EdSource offers infographic to clarify Props. 30/38 confusion – by Louis Freedberg.

As he began his second governorship last year, Jerry Brown warned that California faced a potential “war of all against all” if the state budget was not fairly balanced, or as the former Catholic seminarian put it in Latin, “bellum omnium contra omnes.”

Brown now has the war he didn’t want as Proposition 30, the tax increase ballot measure upon which he has staked his governorship, and perhaps his place in political history, is hammered from the left and the right by two very wealthy siblings, Charles and Molly Munger.

via Dan Walters: Jerry Brown’s tax hike in jeopardy.

Gov. Jerry Brown must be feeling like he has left California and landed in the State of Munger.

It’s not a hospitable place. Mungerland is populated by Molly and Charles Munger, two of nine children of Charles Munger, the billionaire partner of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The offspring have plenty of money, too, as Brown is finding as he tries to win passage of Proposition 30, the $6 billion-a-year tax increase on the Nov. 6 ballot.

via Dan Morain: Brown struggles against Mungers.

by Brent Zupp

With the battle between the campaigns for Propositions 30 and 38 heating up, EdSource President Lawrence Picus is interviewed for this Los Angeles television report which provides some much needed clarity on the dueling initiatives.

via EdSource president helps clarify Propositions 30 & 38 – by Brent Zupp.

No one should doubt that Los Angeles civil rights attorney Molly Munger is passionate about improving public schools in California.

She has proved that by putting her money where her beliefs are, spending $31 million to promote Proposition 38, her initiative to raise income taxes by $10 billion a year to fund schools.

That’s all within the bounds of the California initiative process, in which wealthy interests and philanthropists propose initiatives and try to convince voters of the wisdom of their concepts.

via Editorial: Munger’s attack on Jerry Brown’s initiative could kill both.

By Crystal Brown

As a parent, I’ve learned a few effective strategies over the years for those moments when chaos reigns in my house. 

Now, however, I would like to apply one of the old “effective parenting techniques” to the political circles of both Molly Munger and Gov. Jerry Brown: “TIME OUT!”

Please stop poking holes in each other’s efforts! Have you forgotten for whom you are advocating? Have you forgotten who loses if you both lose? Let me remind you: our kids! 

As the November election nears, I am absolutely appalled and heartbroken as I watch the teams behind Ms. Munger’s Proposition 38 and Gov. Brown’s Proposition 30 campaigns continue to take aim at each other in print  and on television.

via Stop, or you’re getting a time out! A parent’s plea to Molly Munger and Jerry Brown – by Crystal Brown.

By Mike Rosenberg/ San Jose Mercury News

In a move that threatens to kill Gov. Jerry Brown’s pivotal tax-hike initiative, a wealthy California schools advocate backing an alternative measure launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign Tuesday attacking the governor’s proposition.

The TV spots bankrolled by civil rights attorney Molly Munger, the daughter of a billionaire hedge fund manager, represents the first significant opposition against Brown’s Proposition 30, which would raise taxes on the wealthy and hike sales taxes to stave off another round of cuts in K-12 schools and higher education.

The irony of the attack is that it doesn’t come from someone who is anti-tax. Instead, it comes from someone who just likes her tax better.

via Munger launches attack ad against Prop. 30.

By John Fensterwald

It is what supporters of Proposition 30, Gov. Brown’s education funding initiative, suspected and feared would happen. In a new 30-second TV ad that circulated today, the rival campaign of Proposition 38 takes pot shots at Prop 30.

Prop 38 funder Molly Munger  promised Sunday that the campaign would be “compare and contrast” ads to tell the truth about false statements in Prop 30’s TV ads. With its new ad, Prop 38 has now contributed misleading claims of its own, signaling a potentially costly  escalation of a battle for voters’ attention that would probably best be waged promoting a common cause – raising more money for schools – instead of sniping over differences.

via Prop 38 video – by John Fensterwald.

By John Fensterwald and Kathryn Baron

All pretense of goodwill is gone between backers of the two competing education tax measures on November’s ballot. 

State Board of Education President Mike Kirst and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg joined union leaders Monday in sending a strongly worded letter to Molly Munger, the primary backer of Proposition 38, asking her not to run TV ads criticizing Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s school funding measure. Kirst also emailed an undisclosed number of PTA leaders, implying they should pressure Munger “to do all in your power to stop this destructive course of action.” The state PTA, bucking education groups representing school boards, unions, and administrators, is a co-sponsor, with Munger, of Prop 38.

via Rift widens between backers of ed initiatives 30 and 38 – by John Fensterwald and Kathryn Baron.

by Murray Bass

The Fairfield-Suisun School’s District governing board voted unanimously to support state tax increase measures Propositions 30 and 38. That was naive. These are “trust me, baby” measures from a state that deserves no trust, one that tried to loot the First 5 trust fund, has looted redevelopment and taken money from mental health and schools.

Proposition 30 is intended to “help balance the budget,” not fund school programs. Proposition 38 is to fund early childhood education. The state policy reflected in its Foundations publications is do not educate. They are “not educating” very well without additional money. Propositions 30 and 38 are no-no propositions.

via Time ripe to get out the vote.

Among Sacramento wonks the conventional wisdom long held that attorney Molly Munger’s Proposition 38 could kill Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30.

Both call for new taxes. Both are to benefit schools. Both are complicated.

That, goes the theory, will generate enough doubt and confusion to lead voters to reject both.

The latest polls reinforce earlier findings that Proposition 30 is a cliffhanger and that Proposition 38 will lose, despite the nearly $28 million that the deep-pocketed Munger, a longtime civil rights activist, has pumped into it. That’s not surprising. Munger proposes to tax you and me.

via Peter Schrag: Jerry Brown helped create the tax trap that now ensnares him.