Let’s Take the Initiative to Help Minorities

As we move into the electoral season, we sadly note the onset of the accompanying “Statewide Initiative From Hell” season. It’s again time to take potshots at vulnerable minorities. The last few years we have seen assaults on Latino immigrants (Proposition 187), on all people of color (209) and Latinos again (227). Next up on the sacrificial altar of the politics of divisiveness are gays (Proposition 22, the Knight Initiative).

But remember; today’s vulnerable minority could be tomorrow’s emerging powerhouse. The gay community is already a force in grass-roots campaigning. The Latino community is starting to recognize that power in this country is ultimately wielded through the ballot box, and citizenship applications and voter registrations are up, up, up. You don’t suppose we will remember how we have been so ill-treated by the majority, do you? Just imagine that when Latinos are the majority (Latinos already represent more than 30% of the state’s population), what initiatives might arise? Consider the possibility of:

* Proposition 387, “Keep Our State Borders Secure,” which would ban delivery of state services such as education, health care, welfare, child immunization and emergency services to interstate immigrants who had lived in California for less than five years. Of course the proposition would be ruled unconstitutional, but some devious politician would no doubt revive his or her flagging candidacy based on it.

* Proposition 409, “Competence in Government and University Admissions,” which would ban all persons from state government jobs and state university admission unless they could pass rigorous tests and prove that they knew the difference between hip-hop and rap, techno and “house,” norteno and ranchero, Kabuki and “Noh” (sorry, I’m out of the loop on contemporary Asian music). Also on the qualifying test would be inner-city survival skills such as: how to feed a family of six in an area with lower wages but higher food costs; how to find medical care for your family without insurance and money; how to get to work on time without a car; how to find affordable housing when there isn’t any, how to drive while black (and not get arrested); how to get people to see what you can be rather than what they think you are. Hey, it’s a tough test, but only the best of the best for California, right?

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Sarcasm aside, I wish our state initiative process could be used for meaningful things, such as helping people on the fringe become stakeholders in our society and addressing tax issues in a way that would actually help the lower and middle classes instead of just throwing them bones while giving all of the meat to the rich. Here are some ideas:

Property Tax Fairness: Delete those portions of Proposition 13 that apply to nonresidential business properties. Business entities can afford to pay taxes on their properties as they are actually valued, thank you. The additional taxes that would be generated would go to property tax relief for first-time home buyers who, instead of being penalized and having to pay two to three times the property taxes their neighbors pay, should be exempt from property taxes for the first five years of home ownership. This would be a one-time-only exemption and would help the lower and middle classes get established.

Entrepreneur Incubation: California’s economy has become much less dependent on big business and more dependent on small start-up companies. These start-ups deserve some breaks because our future depends on them. All new business entities with total start-up capital of less than $100,000 should be excused from all taxes, including minimum tax, payroll taxes and business license fees, for their first three years (the period in which 80% fail). Existing businesses should pick up the slack.

Here’s one for the feds: Small Stakeholder Relief: Anyone who earned less than $50,000 per year should be exempt from paying capital gains taxes on the sale of assets. Let’s give the little guy some breathing room. The rich don’t need capital gains relief. And they don’t need tax relief. For them, it’s not a question of putting food on the table or pulling together a down payment for a home. It’s more likely to be a third car or the condo at the beach that might, gasp, have to be postponed. And besides, too broad a tax cut would simply spur inflation and weaken the economy.

Not coincidentally all three of these ideas would disproportionately benefit the communities of color, but only because the distribution of wealth in the society we live in is dramatically skewed to the white majority now in power. Right now, this society has to decide on how it will treat people of color and other minorities, such as the gay community, with whom it shares this state. Will it say, “Let them eat cake,” or “Let them have a stake”? Remember, as you sow, so shall you reap.