March 3, 2006
Rob Reiner: Ceaseless in California
By E.
J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON -- Rob Reiner talks at about 165 miles per hour. He tosses
out facts, findings and strategies as if, at any moment, he'll run
out of time to make the next, vital point.
This actor,
director and producer whose success defines the term ``box office''
is on a dual crusade: to change the direction of politics, and
to improve the performance of kids in schools. He bids, someday,
to be the Democrats' answer to Ronald Reagan.
He is, like
Reagan, the opposite of a political dilettante. He's thinking
of the long term -- he's decided not to run for anything this
year. He wants to end conservative ideology's long run that the
Gipper inaugurated. Reiner hopes to persuade his fellow citizens,
first in California and then in the nation, that they can get
a return on their tax dollars.
His current
crusade is Proposition 82, an initiative on California's June
ballot that would provide an estimated $2.4 billion a year to
guarantee preschool for every 4-year-old in California. The initiative
would pay for this by increasing the state's top tax rate, currently
9.3 percent, to 11 percent for couples earning over $800,000 a
year and individuals earning over $400,000.
I sat down
for coffee with Reiner this week, the day after The Wall Street
Journal's conservative editorial page assailed the initiative
as ``Meathead Economics.'' It was the second time in a few months
that the Journal's editorial writers mentioned that Reiner
had played ``Meathead,'' the house liberal on ``All in the Family.''
The 1970s television program introduced America to Archie Bunker,
who may have been the first Reagan Democrat, and with whom Meathead
was in constant political battle.
The
Journal suggested that heavy taxes on the rich would drive
more of them from California. Reiner replied by noting that his
initiative would, on average, cost the wealthy about $13,000 after
they took advantage of the federal deductibility of state taxes.
``I don't imagine people moving to Nevada over that kind of money,''
he said.
Conservatives
leaders dislike his initiative, Reiner said, because ``they have
cemented the notion that raising taxes for any purpose is tantamount
to murdering someone.'' Taxpayers are indeed reluctant to support
general tax increases, he said, but ``the American public has
no problem raising taxes if it's for something good.'' He thinks
that California, which started the tax revolt in the late 1970s,
could inaugurate a new era of public investment in things that
matter.
And preschool
matters. Hard-headed economists have argued that of all the investments
government can make to improve educational outcomes and future
opportunities, preschool may be the most efficient. James J. Heckman,
a Nobel Prize-winning economist, and Pedro Carneiro have noted
that when early chances to form human abilities are missed, ``remediation
is costly, and full remediation is often prohibitively costly.''
Or, as Reiner
says: ``A lot of educators say they'd swap 12th grade for pre-K.''
He reels off studies showing that the money spent in the earliest
years of a child's life can save the public schools substantial
sums later on by improving student performance.
Reiner ran
into a flap last week because a state commission he heads recently
spent $23 million on ads touting the importance of early education.
He took a leave as chairman of the First 5 California Children
and Families Commission last Friday to try to tamp down the controversy
over whether state money had been indirectly used to support a
future ballot proposition.
The larger
controversy is over how California voters have used the initiative
process to mandate programs that tie their state's budget into
knots. The Los Angeles Times editorialized last year
against ``Proposition World, a place where every cause is more
important than the last, and they all come with their very own
tax increase.''
To his credit,
Reiner does not dismiss this argument. His side tried to expand
preschool programs through the normal legislative process, he
says, but earlier voter-approved propositions mandating supermajorities
for tax increases meant the initiative process was often the only
recourse for social reformers.
Reiner,
who turns 59 next week, is not the first actor to try to gain
political prominence through an initiative related to kids. A
certain fellow named Arnold Schwarzenegger got a lot of attention
in 2002 by sponsoring an initiative mandating new spending on
after-school programs.
But preschool
is, by most measures, a more cost-effective investment. And if
Reiner can provoke a new debate on taxing, spending and the value
of preschool, he will earn himself a political Oscar. After many
years of trying, Meathead might yet persuade Archie Bunker to
give liberals a second look.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
