Larry McCarthy Quotations

Whenever you start an entirely new state bureaucracy like this initiative proposes, the costs always exceed initial estimates. When that happens, parents of preschool children could be charged a fee or the legislature could raise taxes on all Californians to keep the new bureaucracy going.

Basically, taxpayers would pay $2.4 billion in higher taxes to get four percent more of our kids into preschool. That just doesn't seem like a very good bang for the buck. Rather than focus resources on the state's most pressing needs or helping parents of low-income families who need the most help sending their kids to preschool, this flawed measure creates a subsidy for rich and middle-income families that already send their kids to preschool.

It is premature. We're a vast state with critical needs. If investment is put together in a fragmented way with initiatives by special interest groups, it is going to be haphazard.

Rob Reiner should do the right thing and pull the ads immediately. He's the chair of the initiative campaign and he's the chair of the First 5 Commission. One call from him and the ads are gone. He needs to step in to prevent even the whiff of political impropriety.

Rather than focus resources on the state's most pressing needs or helping parents of low-income families who need the most help sending their kids to preschool, this flawed measure creates a subsidy for rich and middle-income families that already send their kids to preschool.