April 2006

Lance Izumi
Pacific Research Institute

Guest Speaker Lance Izumi from Pacific Research Institute

Lance Izumi, a senior fellow in California Studies and Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, talked about the upcoming election as it relates to Proposition 82. This is the universal pre-school initiative supported by Rob Reiner.

This involves taxing those individuals earning over $400,000, and couples earning over $800,000 an additional 2% in state income taxes. It will raise between 2.4 and 2.6 billion dollars, and it will be applied to universal pre-school.

Lance Izumi pointed out the many areas of faulty thinking as it relates to this proposition. He discussed the concept of "taxing the wealthy", and the philosophy that "rich guys are going to pay for it." Since it is not inflation-indexed, this will eventually tax the middle class. In the early 1970's, a $100,000 house was at the very top of the market. Now, the middle class purchases houses between $750,000 and $1.5 million in Santa Clara County. You can be assured that in 20-30 years that middle class earners will be impacted by this 2% tax.

He talked about suppressed evidence, myths, and the weaknesses in our current K-12 educational system. While they compare things with the Chicago program, the Reiner program is completely different from the Chicago program. The Rand study showed no evidence that it helps middle class or upper class students, as the Reiner initiative promises.

For conservatives, it is the philosophical argument that is the most powerful. Essentially, this will encourage everyone to give up control of their kids to the state. He referred to this program as a government-sponsored babysitting project. Instead, we need to work on basic education, and the 25% of children in school where English is their second language.

Lance fielded more questions than any previous speaker in Conservative Forum history. He says the hope for optimism is in Charter schools. He wrote and published a book entitled "Free to Learn" that discusses education in California. He encouraged conservatives to get involved at the grass roots level in education, including running for school boards. All-in-all, it was a very informative and entertaining presentation.

Prior to Lance Izumi's presentation, Joey Stone gave a book report on "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: Use of Reason in Everyday Life" by Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender. He specifically reported on the thirteen ways of fallacious reasoning. Lance Izumi piggybacked on many of Joey's concepts, indicating that those supporting the Reiner initiative are using some of the tactics that Joey covered.

Our president, Richard Geno, read a quote from W. C. Mullendore, published in January, 1957: "Some eighty years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States in Savings and Loan Association v. Topeka (22 Law, Ed.461) declared 'to lay, with one hand, the power of government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals ... is nonetheless a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation'."

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