Unsurprising Report from California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office: Dream Act Will Cost More Than Originally Estimated

Before you read my blog about the latest outrage regarding the California Dream Act—that its cost projection for taxpayers has been increased from $40 to $65 million, take a moment to watch Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom field questions from angry, frustrated University of California students who demanded to know when their annual tuition increases would end. See the You Tube video here.  California State University students responded similarly on this video here; UCLA here.

Listening to the disgruntled students complain about their ever-increasing tuition costs, no one would get the impression that this is a great time to discount fees for illegal aliens. And, as is always the case with alien entitlement programs, the initial projections for the taxpayer costs associated with the Dream Act were understated.

California’s arrogant Governor Jerry Brown, dismissing concerns from beleaguered taxpayers that the state could not afford the Dream Act luxury, originally insisted that the lower tuition would cost the state a mere $14 million. Even Brown’s allies jumped on him for that misleading calculation. The Sacramento Bee promptly predicted that $40 million would be the likely cost. [Jerry Brown Signs California Dream Act, by David Siders, Sacramento Bee, October 8, 2011]

Even if California had a budget surplus, $40 million is a scandalously high sum to shell out for aliens’ advanced educations. When you also consider that taxpayers fund aliens’ K-12 schooling in the aggregate of around $10 billion annually, the Dream Act is the last straw. For full details about the catastrophic California K-12 system, read my CAPS Issues piece title California’s Education Crisis Reflects the State’s Overpopulation and Over-Immigration Crisis.

Now from the Legislative Analyst’s Office comes the word that the actual cost will be $65 million, not $40 and certainly not $14. To make the Dream Act more harmful to American kids, citizens will get smaller Cal Grants since more students (the aliens) will be competing for the same small pot of money. Read the entire LAO report here.

A Los Angeles Times poll, taken before the revised, increased LAO projections found that 55 percent of all Californians oppose the Dream Act. In most cases, 55 percent represents a majority which then rules. When it comes to California and illegal alien entitlements, however, Sacramento ignores the majority.

See CAPS’ legislative alert here to download petitions to stop the California Dream Act, AB 131. By collecting 504,760 valid signatures, a petition to put a voter referendum on the November, 2012 ballot would put the Dream Act’s fate where it belongs—in the people’s hands.