Reiner’s Slight of Hand
The Sacramento Bee reports today Embattled Reiner slams his critics
Facing a state audit and possible criminal investigation of the state commission he chaired, movie director Rob Reiner on Monday said his opponents are targeting him for attacks to avoid discussing the merits of the universal preschool initiative he put on the June ballot.
Actually, there are many who would love to debate the merits of Prop 82. Here is a libertarian point of view on Prop 82…
According to California’s “Preschool for All†supporters, universal preschool would enroll 70 percent of the 550,000 four year olds in California every year when fully implemented. That would be 385,000 preschoolers. According to California’s Legislative Analyst Office, 66 percent of California four year olds are already enrolled in preschool. That is 363,000 preschoolers. If California’s $2.4 billion Preschool for All initiative meets its goal of 70 percent enrollment, just 22,000 new four-year-olds would enroll, meaning it would cost taxpayers a whopping $109,000 per new preschooler.
Unfortunately Mr. Reiner doesn’t want to discuss all of the issues at hand. It appears as if in Mr. Reiner’s world that not following the rules is okay because he is a do-gooder!
Personally I believe that pre-school is beneficial. It certainly helps many children get used to interacting with children their own age.
Sacramento Bee’s Daniel Weintraub reports in his California Insider blog
Unfortunately, the audit is going to take four or five months from the time that it starts, and no one knows when it will begin. A vote to expedite the audit fell one vote short of passage in the committee.
The Bee reports
The 59-year-old Democrat said he had nothing to do with the $23 million ad campaign that aired from November to mid-January promoting preschool.
Mr. Reiner, you are in charge and therefore responsible for this fiasco. This is a California style Abramoff scandal. I salute the Bee and Daniel Weintraub for staying on this issue.
I would suggest that the Bureau of State Audits should get moving on this issue. If they are auditing the expenditure of First 5 funds on behalf of Prop 82 it shouldn’t take five months. Get an audit team and an attorney on site and get this worked out. Think about this, 3 auditors and 1 attorney working full-time on this issue for 4 weeks would represent 640 hours of work. We are auditing a single issue here folks, not a bloated state department.
If we are going to do this shouldn’t we do it right? If Mr. Reiner and First 5 didn’t do anything wrong I would suspect that they would deliver ALL relevant documents to the Bureau of State Audits TODAY.