by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi:

"Our state and its people cannot prosper in the 21st century if we force our schools to live on a fiscal starvation diet," Garamendi said Thursday at Sacramento City College.

Assemblymember Dave Jones:

However, in doing so my Republican colleagues in the State Assembly decided that while they were prepared to cut education funding and health care for the poor, they just couldn't stomach closing the yacht tax loophole. Too painful, apparently, to the Thurston Howell IIIs of the world. So they refused to provide the 2/3 vote necessary to close the yacht tax loophole. In doing so they robbed the poor to help subsidize tax avoidance by rich yacht owners. Are those the values we want reflected in our state budget? Those aren't my values, that's for sure.

Jack O'Connell, who is nominally in charge of education for the state, should find something else to emphasize.