by Jack Lee
Californian’s are already the most taxed and we also have the highest paid state politicians. A sort of double insult, considering we’re broke. In theory we should have the very best of everything our tax money can buy. Instead of all that tax money putting us way ahead of other states we find ourselves near the bottom of the pack in virtually every category you care to name. The politicians response to this failure to manage our tax money efficiently has been: “We need more tax money!”
Last year our lawmakers rushed through a budget to save being penalized with a salary halt if they didn’t meet the deadline, but their rushed budget left us short about $14 billion for 2012. Now as we go into the new budget year we have to make it up, so here comes five new ballot initiative tax-increase proposals:
Think Long Committee for California proposes a $10 billion increase by imposing a sales tax on services, while minutely reducing the income tax, lowering the corporate tax and increasing taxes on out-of-state businesses.
California Federation of Teachers proposes a $6 billion tax increase by raising the income tax on those earning more than $1 million a year, with 60 percent going to schools and higher education.
Molly Munger, civil rights advocate, proposes a $10 billion increase by raising income taxes on everyone but the poorest taxpayers. The money would go to school districts, preschools and early-childhood development programs.
Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs proposed a $1.1 billion increase by raising corporate taxes on out-of-state businesses to fund clean energy projects.
Gov. Jerry Brown, and public employee unions, propose a $7 billion tax increase by imposing a four-year, half-cent sales tax increase, a five-year income tax increase on those earning more than $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for a married couple.
But, it doesn’t stop here, many local jurisdictions are proposing their own tax hikes. Some folks in the City of Chico would like to raise our city sales tax so they could add another $7M to the city coffers. (The Butte County Taxpayers Association is looking into this)
There’s no doubt that some city and county governments really could use the money. They have been cut to the bone by falling revenues, but, is asking taxpayers for more money always the right way to go, especially when its a sales tax hike? A sales or consumption tax is a punitive measure that works against business and lowers revenue.
When we increase the sales tax we’re placing a greater burden on those least able to pay…the poorest among us. An income tax can be structured to avoid low and no income families, but a sales tax goes right into their pocket and that doesn’t seem fair.
The Governor and the Democratic controlled legislature tell us they’ve gone over the budget and there’s really nothing left to cut. Don’t believe it!
A cursory look by a few watchdog organizations like CalTax and Howard Jarvis say there are many areas left to be cut. We have over 1100 boards, commissions and committees in California and many are redundant within the state and some are duplicated by the feds. Why haven’t even one of these been eliminated?
How about cutting our legislature to part time?
Thanks to our working full time lawmakers we have 725 new laws for 2011. Did we really need another 725 laws? And you know each new law costs somebody something. So I wish these guys would take off for 5-6 months a year and give us a break.
Or maybe our legislature should consider taking a pay cut before asking state employees for a pay cut? That’s called leadership by example! We haven’t seen much of that lately, have we?
Studies show that parole doesn’t work. If we ended the State Parole Office we could save millions and not be any worse off for crime.
By making it mandatory that schools turn out lights and turn off the heat, when classrooms are empty we could about $10-12M.
By cutting back on the State’s motor pool it’s estimated we could save $50M.
Way back in 1962 the Little Hoover Commission found a number of ways the state could save millions, but it was never implemented. Today those cost cuts would be worth billions in savings. For example they suggested a complete state and local government pension overhaul, including a freeze on benefits and reducing them in the future (today). They wanted the state to consider 401(k) programs instead of the PERS guaranteed pension. Well, it never happened and now salaries in the public sector are ahead of those in the private sector and the benefits… fit for a King! And here’s another couple of areas, welfare benefits are so high they act like a magnet for deadbeats from other states and there’s evidence to say a lot of state revenue is slipping through the cracks in the form phony exemptions for so-called non-profits.
I am all for paying my fair share of taxes, but before Sacramento asks us all to pay more tax they better do a lot more research into ways they can cut the waste, reduce bureaucracy and give us more local control over our tax dollars.
A good faith start to cost cutting would be to apply a “means test” to their own wages and benefits. I bet a majority of the legislators don’t need our tax money and an even greater number don’t deserve it.
Hey, Gov Moonbeam. YOUR party controls the Legislature and has for decades. YOUR party continues to $pend money CA doesn’t have. YOUR party passed a budget based on fantasy figures last summer. YOUR party is driving businesses out of CA with over-regulation and higher taxes. YOUR party continues to support illegal alien arrivals with benefits.
YOUR party needs to CUT SPENDING before the taxpayer has to come up with more $$!
2012 brings huge opportunities to turn our state around. Activists have gathered the signatures for a Paycheck Protection initiative to limit union influence on our legislature. The left has put so many tax increases out there that voters are likely to throw their hands up and vote NO on all of them.
Dan Logue is pushing a bill for a part time legislature. I was somewhat skeptical of this as term limits didn’t seem to do much good, but he makes a very good argument that legislators will be more respectful of the private class when they are members of it year round.
There’s a lot here that could determine the political future of CA. We could go conservative and change course, or stay to the left and watch our state continue to deteriorate into Greece. Still, I don’t yet see a good pro-jobs initiative and I’m hoping for one.
Oregon has a Right to Farm act, which seems to give property owners more power to protect their rights to make use of their properties, even when government doesn’t agree. We need something here like that. Perhaps a Right to Harvest bill that would give us more access to our own resources.
Voter ID. We need it in CA. It’s a simple thing to show someone an ID when you’re doing something as important as voting. Everyone who should be able to vote should also have an ID. The only reason anyone is against doing this is that they benefit from voter fraud.
Welfare reform. CA is 12% of the US population and we carry over 30% of the welfare burden. Limit people from other states to receiving the same amount of assistance they would have received back home and we can stop them from moving here for our benefits. It’s time to force other states to pay their fair share and shoulder their own load.
And when we’ve done all this, we seriously need a TAX CUT to stimulate our state’s economy and bring back some businesses.
I call all of this a good start.
First, I will give Brown credit for at least getting rid of a lot of wasted state cell phones and state cars. About time.
But I want to know why our schools were broke when houses in this state, and even in Chico were selling for over $500k. The property taxes on those houses were huge and houses were selling fast so Prop 13 can’t be blamed for keeping the property taxes low. So why were our schools so broke during the first decade of the 2000s? I hate that our schools supposedly have no money, but there should be plenty of money in education. Where is it all going? It can’t all be going to teachers salaries. Where is the rest of it?