Wow, it's hard to imagine an analysis as far off the mark as the one you've made. Perhaps one has to be old enough to remember the dramatic effect that proposition 13 had on California. What Jackie Goldberg was saying when she said 'we cut this' and 'we cut that' she was speaking about the cuts that were made because of the loss in revenue from prop. 13. She noted that the public didn't realize and still hasn't realized, the effect prop. 13 had because teachers were so good-natured as to make up the loss out of their own pockets. If something should concern you about quote you posted, it ought to be the last line, in which she strategizes that perhaps finding a way to make people feel the actual pain of the policies of the rich and stingy would be a way to drive home the effect those policies have. Those rich and stingy folks who are only too happy to become millionaires and billionaires without contributing anything of substance to society at large, who make their money often completely as a result of the design of the system, and then who are unwilling to chip in to help those who aren't so fortunate as to be able to use that system to accumulate vast wealth.