Educationally speaking

Gay Geiser-Sandoval

When I was 18 years old, teens couldn’t vote. At that time, the Vietnam

War was going on. There was fury among the young men, who were told that

they were old enough to die for their country, but not old enough to vote

for the elected representatives that were deciding to send them there.

Ever since I turned 21, I have voted in every election. My chosen

candidates and proposals have not always won, but I added my voice to the

American process.

Most of you, on the other hand, will not vote. Four out of five

registered voters may choose not to vote this election. Many of you

aren’t even registered to vote. You may think it will save you from

having to serve jury duty.

Now, they take names from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, so if

you have a driver’s license or ID card, you can be on the jury list.

Don’t let jury duty stop you from registering to vote.

Elected representatives listen to the people who elect them and the

people who pay for their election campaigns. If you are in school, or

have kids in school, you probably don’t vote, don’t help out with

campaigns and don’t give money to campaigns. And, look where it has

gotten you. Don’t you think there is a correlation between your lack of

involvement and the sad state of school funding?

Americans over 65 years old are the biggest single voting block. They can

be counted on to vote in every election, and to use their organizations

as giant lobbying groups to remind representatives that they will deliver

a solid number of voters. Since the rest of us don’t bother to show up at

the polls, that group is deciding election results. More and more of our

taxes are going to provide Medicare and Social Security dollars.

Millionaires are “entitled” to those dollars solely because they have

reached a certain age and have been employed for a certain amount of

time. The tax dollars that you and I supply don’t depend on whether an

older person needs the money.

School children, on the other hand, are not “entitled” to attend schools

with well-maintained buildings or necessary supplies. Currently, one

third of the voters, which translates right now into one third of the

people in your neighborhood who probably don’t have kids in school, can

decide that kids won’t get toilets that flush, roofs that don’t leak and

rooms with windows that open and shut.

Proposition 26 would change that. If it passes, the majority could decide

when and if to fix our schools. We would vote on the amount and the terms

of the bond, and know how the money was to be spent before we voted. The

bonds would be subject to two annual audits.

So, on March 7, you have the chance to see if the majority should decide

when and if to fix our schools. But, if you don’t get out and vote, less

than the minority can take that decision away from you. It may save

property taxes in the short term, but who is going to keep funding our

Social Security system and Medicare in the future? Those systems are

funded through income taxes. The better a person’s education, the better

their job, and the higher their lifetime income. A higher income leads to

paying more income tax, which will fund those two systems.

So, if you are planning to live until you are 150 years old, which is the

new prediction, you better start funding the education of the young kids

in school today. They will have to support you through these government

programs. Vote on March 7.

* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs Tuesdays.

She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] .