Huff Calls for Facebook Profits to Fund Education

State Sen. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), the Republican majority leader, along with Assembly Majority Leader Connie Conway of Tulare, weighed in Thursday on Facebook’s announcement that it plans to take its company public.

The lawmakers said in a statement that the public offering of the social media giant’s stock “could generate a one-time tax revenue windfall for California,” and suggested that money be used to fund education instead of looking to some proposed tax increases that Gov. Jerry Brown is calling for to help close a budget gap. 

“The great news that Facebook will go public likely means an additional one-time windfall to the state’s treasury this next fiscal year,” the legislators said in a joint statement.  “We should use this added revenue to protect our public school students from the Governor’s trigger cuts and pay down the state’s debt service. 

“Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past by using one-time funding for on-going programs. Instead, let’s prioritize what matters most – protecting our classrooms and preventing our children from paying for this generation’s wall of debt.”

Brown has proposed raising income tax on those making $250,000 or more annually and increasing state sales tax by a half cent.  The increases would raise an estimated $7 billion a year and expire in 2017.  The governor has said he wants to take the measure to the voters in November and if it is not passed, an automatic cut of $4.8 billion from public education would be triggered.

Yesterday, Facebook filed its S-1 form with the SEC for an Initial Public Offering, reported the Huffington Post.  The company hopes to raise $5 billion.

In a letter to the public, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg explained what the company hopes to accomplish with its IPO.

"Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected," he wrote. "We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do."