Tax increases favored to save public schools

Most Californians favor tax increases to maintain current funding levels for the state's public schools, according to a survey released last week by the California Progress Report.

In the survey, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would pay higher taxes to avoid cuts to K-12 funding. About 70 percent said they support spending cuts to the stater's prison system. Half of California's surveyed said they would be willing to pay more taxes to protect higher education.

From the press release:

But while majorities want to protect K-12 schools and cut spending on prisons, Californians are as divided as their leaders on the overall strategy to deal with the state's $20 billion budget deficit: 41 percent favor a mix of spending cuts and tax increases and 37 percent favor mostly spending cuts (9% favor mostly tax increases). They are in more agreement when it comes to asking the federal government for help, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done: 66 percent say California should seek federal aid to help meet its budget obligations.

When asked which of the four main areas of state spending they would most want to protect from budget cuts, 58 percent choose K-12 public education--the area most Californians have wanted to spare each of the nine times PPIC has posed the question.

Results were based on telephone surveys with 2,001 California residents in January.