Happy 50.4th!

"The symbol on our state flag is a golden bear," Governor Ronald Reagan told Californians. "It is not a cow to be milked." With that, Reagan turned from animal husbandry to husbanding the state's sorely strained resources. In his first month in office, he helped fire the state university's president, proposed that students pay tuition (see Education), and outlined a budget of reduced state services.

Last week he told his constituents how much more he expects to charge them for less government: a 1-c- increase in the general sales tax, raising it to 5-c- on the dollar; 5-c- more per pack of cigarettes, boosting it to 8-c- and 50-c- more on a gallon of liquor, to $2. Next day, a Reagan aide sent out a memorandum suggesting that state employees volunteer to work without compensation on Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, thus saving the state--according to the Governor's arithmetic--$7,000,000.

The proposal went over like a leaden bear. Union leaders protested, the Democratic-controlled legislature announced it would take off a long weekend (including Lincoln's Birthday), and even the Republican Secretary of State, Frank Jordan, said his office would close for the holiday. Worse yet, the chairman of the Assembly's Revenue and Taxation Committee, Republican John Veneman, introduced tax bills markedly different from Republican Reagan's. Veneman proposed, in addition to an increase in the sales tax, which inevitably discriminates against lower-income groups, a general increase in corporate and personal income taxes.

Reagan's critics crowed mightily over his troubles. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who of late has become something of an omnibus oracle, pronounced in Los Angeles that Reagan, by making such unpopular moves, "has eliminated himself from national politics." In fact, the Governor had acted with fidelity to his campaign promises. "When you're spending $1,000,000 a day you don't have," he warned last week, "it is quite a crisis." Moreover, Reagan hopes to relieve sorely abused property owners, whose tax loads have increased 169% in ten years.

At any rate, the California Poll reported this month that 52% of the citizenry approves a reduction in state spending on higher education and 51% favors the imposition of tuition at state campuses. Reagan himself maintains a cheerful mien, admits that he is "stingy" and "stubborn." When his staff celebrated his 56th birthday last week by giving him an "economy" cake that had a 10% slice missing and only 90% of its proper allotment of candles, the Governor could only agree that it was nice to be 50.4 again.

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