A potentially serious complication has arisen in California’s latest effort to avoid billions in spending cuts, which threaten the state’s education and welfare systems.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 intends to forestall “draconian” budget cuts by temporarily raising taxes, including sales taxes and income taxes on the wealthy. The initiative could largely determine his legacy, as well as the state’s fiscal health for at least a decade. Moreover, if successful, Prop. 30 could begin to shift the national conversation on taxes after decades of extreme antitax sentiment across the country.
Polls show that a thin majority of state voters support Prop. 30. But that support could be undercut by another proposition that aims to raise taxes for public education. Molly Munger, the millionaire behind the rival initiative, has even suggested she might start airing comparison ads arguing why voters should vote for her proposition, not Governor Brown’s Prop. 30.
California’s gas price crisis ensures that any tax hike propositions are doomed.
If you could back out the public expenditures for illegal immigrants and the amount by which public employee costs exceed their private sector counterparts, I wonder by how much the state budget deficit would drop – just sayin’.
“Draconian budget cuts?” We’ve already had those cuts, and they’ve really hurt us. Add to them the pump prices which bounce up and down like a yo-yo every time somebody sneezes or there is a hint of price-rigging because of a glitch in the pipelines or a week-long shortage because a fire or electical outage, and we get stuck with the bill! And then what happens? The price may go down, but not to the same level as before the glitch. The prices and the taxes keep edging upwards, of course! Brown’s “temporary” tax hike is in deep trouble here.
I am going to vote no on all tax increases.
DITTO!
Can a voting public, which has become accustomed to living in an entitlement-rich society, really learn not to? It actually seems unlikely, and it that is true then California is on a one-way street to a societal collapse. Ordinarily that would be a little humorous, but I understand that California has the 6th or 7th largest economy in the world. So it is no laughing matter.
6. It may surprise you that we in California [i]do[/i] really hate tax increases, and we’re not very happy with those who have come to rely on ‘entitlements’ such as welfare and Social Security benefits for those who haven’t earned them but receive them because some member of their family [i]has[/i] earned them and brings his or her extended family across the border.
There are those, however, who [i]do[/i] qualify for entitlements honestly, such as retirees who’ve paid into the system for all of their working lives, and yet we hear of people complaining about it…..of having their FICA taxes go to ‘support’ these people, and I find myself agreeing with them, too. The answer would seem to be investing in one’s own financial future by making prudent investments, yet I also find myself asking what [i]is[/i] “prudent” these days. Is there an answer to our problems?