By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, www.originalsources.com
In early February, 1997, Rob Reiner, filmmaker, made a presentation to the assembled state governors at the National Governors Association meeting, along with Dr. Bruce D. Perry, chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital, to announce what most mothers and grandmothers down through the ages already knew: A child's brain development from before birth to age three is phenomenal.
In his presentation, Dr. Perry said "The ability of a brain to soak in new information and organize itself in the infant is 10,000 times more powerful than it is in a 50-year-old person." I thought, as I watched their presentation on C-Span that, at last, we were hearing scientific evidence proving the great value of full-time mothers talking and interacting happily as she cares for her infant, so the baby makes the very best use of that remarkable growing period..
Not on your life. What Rob Reiner had in mind was not less but MORE interference in the homes of America. He strongly urged the governors to "extend education downward" to the first three years of life. Governors, male and female, liberal and conservative, spent most of the time in the discussion period which followed trying to figure out how they could find state money to "extend education downward" to this newly identified group of people - "babies prior to birth to age three." ("Prior to birth?" Where does that put people like Bill Clinton who favor partial birth abortion of full term infants?) Only one governor, Pete Wilson of California, broke rank by noting that "recognizing the importance of those early years, California makes every effort to help mothers stay at home with their children as much as possible."
So, guess who has popped up with a scheme designed to find the money to somehow alter Pete Wilson's silly notion that babies need their mother? Rob Reiner. He is behind Proposition 10 which will be voted on in California on November 3rd. The proposition "Creates state and county commissions to establish early childhood development and smoking prevention programs. Imposes additional taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products. Fiscal Impact: New revenues and expenditures of $400 million in 1998-99 and $750 million annually. Reduced revenues for Proposition 99 programs of $18 million in 1998-99 and $7 million annually. Other minor revenue increases and potential unknown savings."
How clever! The media is so busy talking about the notion of raising the cost of cigarettes, which is supposed to reduce smoking, that no one has really asked exactly what those unelected state and county commissions are going to be empowered to do. Based on Reiner's presentation to the governors last year, I must assume that parents actually won't have much to say in the matter. The power of public schooling over children will be extended down to the youngest infants - and the commissions will be rolling in money to enforce their "expert" child raising theories.
I haven't smoked since experimenting with cigarettes at age 16 and am all for people quitting the expensive and destructive habit. However, I have a real problem with all parts of Reiner's Proposition 10, which is an Amendment to the California Constitution.
The Proposition, which is called the California Children and Families First Initiative, proposes to increase tobacco taxes on California smokers by $750 million annually to fund early childhood development programs. The current excise tax on cigarettes is 37 cents per pack. Ten cents is allocated to the state General Fund, 2 cents for breast cancer research, and 25 cents to the Proposition 99-created Cigarette and Tobacco Products Surtax Fund. State and local governments currently administer a variety of early childhood development programs.
While that sounds just wonderful, the California Taxpayers Association warns that the Proposition:
Since the majority of smokers are low and moderate income people, Proposition 10 in effect taxes the poor and puts an estimated $750 million a year of tax money into the hands of unelected education bureaucrats who are going to have incredible amount of control over babies.
But, you say, this is for the children? It's a GOOD thing? Let's take a look at how the money will be spent:
* Twenty percent of available revenues would be allocated to a new California Children and Families First Commission with seven voting members appointed by the governor, the Senate Rules Committee and the speaker of the Assembly, and two ex-officio, non-voting members. The commission would develop statewide program guidelines, distribute education materials, provide technical assistance to county commissions, and conduct research and evaluations of early childhood development programs.
* This funding would be spent as follows: mass media communications 6 percent, education 5 percent, child care 3 percent, research 3 percent, administration 2 percent, and general purposes 1 percent. Eighty percent of revenues would be allocated to counties that create commissions based on the number of births in the county. The commissions would consist of five to nine members appointed by county boards of supervisors. Two or more counties could form joint commissions, joint strategic plans or joint programs. The funds must be used to supplement and not replace existing service levels. The initiative amends the State Constitution to provide that the new tax revenues are not General Fund revenues for Proposition 98 education funding purposes, and that the appropriation of these funds is not subject to state or local appropriations limits.
Eighty percent of $750 million a year buys a lot of bureaucrats. And what, do you suppose, all those bureaucrats are going to find to do? Anyone remember how enthusiastic we all were about the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency? Did any of us think it would grow to a police-state style bureaucracy that would jail a farmer for plowing up a rat in his field or stop a farmer from fixing a leaking water pipe because the leak had created a "wetland?"
Who do our children belong to in this growing national socialism state Rob Reiner seems to be planning? Education of the young is one of the unalienable rights of parents, according to several Supreme Court decisions. Yet, parents, it seems, have not even a vote on what this incredibly well-financed "commission" system will do in its role of forming the minds of their babies, once Proposition 10 is passed. What, do you suppose, will all those hundreds of "commissioners" be doing with your babies?
Somehow the whole idea reminds me of something Adolph Hitler said on November 6, 1933, "When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly said, 'Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."
In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William Shirer wrote: "On May 1, 1937 (Hitler) declared, 'This new Reich will give its youth to no none, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.' It was not an idle boast; that was precisely what was happening."
When someone wants to use the power of the state and $750 million a year to do something with your baby's brain that you, as a parent, won't even have an opportunity to vote on, beware!
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com