How to save California - Slash taxes

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miniMUNCH

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2000
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I grew up in CA and lived there until 6 years ago... I'd love to CA recover some how but without some major corporate tax concessions the CA economy is not gonna recover... there are too many other great places to live in the US and lot of those places have much lower corporate tax slates.

In the end analysis, corporate tax is just passed onto the buyer/customer.
 

miniMUNCH

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2000
4,159
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Originally posted by: txrandom
California needs to fix their problems. I'm tired of all these hippies transplanting to Texas.

A lot of CA hippies are hitting up Colorado, too.

I am actually in the initial stages of starting a small business and i presently live in CO. CO is soooo much more friendly to small businesses than CA from a tax perspective, from a legal perspective, etc.

People who say, "Oh CA will be fine if we stabilize our tax base... charge more property tax, ya da."

Okay... tax based in ultimately provided by jobs, jobs are provided by businesses... if businesses move out of the state, the tax base is gonna go to shit.

There are so many awesome, inexpensive places (for people and businesses) to live in the US, outside of CA... CA better do something and soon.
 

miniMUNCH

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2000
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Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

I do agree that prop 13 should be repealed but replaced with some form of moderation... and then taxes should be reduced in other areas.

Originally, it was envisioned that property tax was the 'only tax' to levied on the people. Property taxes go the local government, the local governments pay a tithe of their receipts to the state, and the states to the federal government.

 

Slew Foot

Lifer
Sep 22, 2005
12,381
96
86
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

Cant believe I agree with this guy. Spending need to be cut too, get rid of the ridiculous pension benefits the state union employees are getting.

 

EagleKeeper

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Oct 30, 2000
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Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

If Prop 13 is repealed; do you really think that the CA politicians will reduce spending and/or lower taxes as a compensation.

They have already shown that they are unable to reduce spending enough to live with their means. Now provide them with a large increase - what incentive will they have to tighten their belts - None. this is not a small increase that will allow them to balance the existing budget - it will provide a cash cow to be abused

You now have higher taxes which could drive some people out of their homes and what will be accomplished.

 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
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Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

If Prop 13 is repealed; do you really think that the CA politicians will reduce spending and/or lower taxes as a compensation.

They have already shown that they are unable to reduce spending enough to live with their means. Now provide them with a large increase - what incentive will they have to tighten their belts - None. this is not a small increase that will allow them to balance the existing budget - it will provide a cash cow to be abused

You now have higher taxes which could drive some people out of their homes and what will be accomplished.

California has exactly the level of taxation that its citizens are willing to support, nothing more, nothing less. There are many ways to accomplish this level of taxation, and the current way sucks. Most states throughout the country use property taxes for precisely the reason that they are generally stable and allow for long range financial planning. California should do this too.

You could easily make the proposition to repeal prop 13 have lower tax offsets in it as well. Regardless, prop 13 easily ranks as one of the most foolish laws ever to be enacted and implemented on a wide scale.
 

EagleKeeper

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Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

If Prop 13 is repealed; do you really think that the CA politicians will reduce spending and/or lower taxes as a compensation.

They have already shown that they are unable to reduce spending enough to live with their means. Now provide them with a large increase - what incentive will they have to tighten their belts - None. this is not a small increase that will allow them to balance the existing budget - it will provide a cash cow to be abused

You now have higher taxes which could drive some people out of their homes and what will be accomplished.

California has exactly the level of taxation that its citizens are willing to support, nothing more, nothing less. There are many ways to accomplish this level of taxation, and the current way sucks. Most states throughout the country use property taxes for precisely the reason that they are generally stable and allow for long range financial planning. California should do this too.

You could easily make the proposition to repeal prop 13 have lower tax offsets in it as well. Regardless, prop 13 easily ranks as one of the most foolish laws ever to be enacted and implemented on a wide scale.

the issue that I am trying to bring forward, is that when Prop 13 is removed, is would generate additional income. I would not expect politicians to adjust the tax level elsewhere to compensate.

I would expect them to find additional ways of spending the increase revenue.

And the citizens would have to authorize the change of tax revenue - after what they have seen of their politicians, that seems unlikely

 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,062
1
0
Cracks in the Future

Op-Ed Columnist
Cracks in the Future

Berkeley, Calif.


Bob Herbert


While the U.S. has struggled with enormous problems over the past several years, there has been at least one consistent bright spot. Its system of higher education has remained the finest in the world.

Now there are ominous cracks appearing in that cornerstone of American civilization. Exhibit A is the University of California, Berkeley, the finest public university in the world and undoubtedly one of the two or three best universities in the United States, public or private.

More of Berkeley?s undergraduates go on to get Ph.D.?s than those at any other university in the country. The school is among the nation?s leaders in producing winners of the Nobel Prize. An extraordinary amount of cutting-edge research in a wide variety of critically important fields, including energy and the biological sciences, is taking place here.

While I was roaming the campus, talking to students, professors and administrators, word came that scientists had put together a full analysis and a fairly complete fossilized skeleton of Ardi, who is known to her closest living associates as Ardipithecus ramidus. At 4.4 million years of age, this four-foot tall, tree-climbing wonder is now the oldest known human ancestor.

Give Berkeley credit. The school?s Tim White, a paleoanthropologist, led the international team that worked for years on this project, an invaluable advance in human knowledge and understanding.

So it?s dismaying to realize that the grandeur of Berkeley (and the remarkable success of the University of California system, of which Berkeley is the flagship) is being jeopardized by shortsighted politicians and California?s colossally dysfunctional budget processes.

Berkeley is caught in a full-blown budget crisis with nothing much in the way of upside in sight. The school is trying to cope with what the chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, described as a ?severe and rapid loss in funding? from the state, which has shortchanged Berkeley?s budget nearly $150 million this year, and cut more than $800 million from the higher education system as a whole.

This is like waving goodbye to the futures of untold numbers of students. Chancellor Birgeneau denounced the state?s action as ?a completely irresponsible disinvestment in the future of its public universities.?

(The chancellor was being kind. Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes watching the chaos of California politicians trying to deal with fiscal and budgetary matters would consider ?completely irresponsible? to be the mildest of possible characterizations.)

Berkeley is laying off staffers, reducing faculty through attrition and cutting pay. Student fees will no doubt have to be raised, and the fear is that if the financial crisis continues unabated it will be difficult to retain and recruit the world-class scholars who do so much to make the school so special.

Chancellor Birgeneau said he is optimistic that Berkeley will be able to maintain its greatness and continue to thrive, but he told me candidly in an interview, ?It?s hard to see when we are going to get back to a situation where we can start rewarding people properly.?

We should all care about this because Berkeley is an enormous and enormously unique national asset. As a public university it offers large numbers of outstanding students from economically difficult backgrounds the same exceptionally high-quality education that is available at the finest private universities.

Something wonderful is going on when a school that is ranked among those at the very top in the nation and the world is also a school in which more than a third of the 25,000 undergraduates qualify for federal Pell grants, which means their family incomes are less than $45,000 a year. More than 4,000 students at Berkeley are from families where the annual income is $20,000 or less.

More than a third are the first in their families to attend a four-year college.

Berkeley is aggressively pursuing alternative funding sources. The danger is that as public support for the school declines, it will lose more and more of its public character. Substantially higher fees for incoming students would be the norm, and more and more students from out of state and out of the country (who can afford to pay the full freight of their education) would be recruited.

This would most likely hurt students from middle-class families more than poorer ones. Those kids are caught between the less well-off, who are helped by a variety of financial aid programs, and the wealthy students, whose families have no problem paying for a first-class college education.

The problems at Berkeley are particularly acute because of the state?s drastic reduction of support. But colleges and universities across the country ? public and private ? are struggling because of the prolonged economic crisis and the pressure on state budgets. It will say a great deal about what kind of nation we?ve become if we let these most valuable assets slip into a period of decline.

our public (and private) universities are our last competitive advantage over the rest of the world, places like the UC system, michigan, washington, Wisconsin, texas and many other elite public universities are the most important contributor to american prosperity and social mobility. breaking this system that has served America so well the last 70+ years would be a tragedy.
 

Corn

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 1999
6,389
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Originally posted by: eskimospy
Most states throughout the country use property taxes for precisely the reason that they are generally stable and allow for long range financial planning. California should do this too.

What a steaming pile of bullshit. Most states do not impose a property tax to fund state government. Property taxes in most states are used to fund city, county, and school district costs, not state government. Most states impose income and/or sales taxes as their main source of revenue.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Originally posted by: Double Trouble
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

And those fringe ultra-right people control CA and are numerous enough to get props like 13 passed? That doesn't make sense. Things like prop 13 pass because the general population is frustrated, and they see a way to fix it. If the tax happy government had not jacked up property taxes all the time, the general population would not have put in prop 13.

Every state in the country needs something like prop 13. The only flaw is that they curbed taxation without curbing spending. The two need to go hand in hand.

Californians get 'duped' by the radical right from time to time, and that was a classic example.

As I said above, the skyrocketing real estate prices during a period did result in problems of excessive property taxes, and so there was a big appetite to do *something*.

It's just that instead of doing the right thing, and adjusting the taxes, the radical right grabbed the issue and the left defaulted, and so what got done was prop 13.

They took some things that couldn't and shouldn't get passed on their own - *commercial* property tax slashing, and changing the tax requirement from 50% to 66% -and bundled them in with the very popular reduction on *residential* property taxes - indeed not just a reduction but a pretty extreme rule letting them barely go up, that made neighbors pay very different taxes on similar properties, and 'trapped' people in big homes.

In fact, if I recall correctly, that may have been a reason why CA started clearly limiting ballot initiatives to one issue, because that bundling is a terrible way to sneak things in.

If you want to try to say something simple about California voters, start by explaining our electing Jerry Brown and Ronald Reagan back to back.

After that you can explain how they recalled a decent governor who was the enemy of Enrion, when they got angry about Enron, to replace him with a close friend of Enron.

CA has a bunch of different groups, some tea baggers, some liberals, plenty in the 'middle', plenty almost apolitical, many minorities.

They vote a variety of ways, sometimes good and sometimes bad. They did not understand the diaster prop 13 would be.

It was a backlash used to get bad things passed, not all that different from 9/11 getting used to get support for the Iraq war that the public was otherwise against.

Would you say the US is filled with Neocons because the Iraq war occured (with Bush re-elected)? No, and prop 13 doesn't prove voters were largely radical right.
 

EagleKeeper

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Why would the left default - because no one could see the future, only the present?
 

Double Trouble

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: Double Trouble
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Actually California is home to some of the most radical right wing areas in the country, the inland empire is full of the ultra-right.

Prop 13 needs to repealed, and other taxes lowered to compensate.

And those fringe ultra-right people control CA and are numerous enough to get props like 13 passed? That doesn't make sense. Things like prop 13 pass because the general population is frustrated, and they see a way to fix it. If the tax happy government had not jacked up property taxes all the time, the general population would not have put in prop 13.

Every state in the country needs something like prop 13. The only flaw is that they curbed taxation without curbing spending. The two need to go hand in hand.

Californians get 'duped' by the radical right from time to time, and that was a classic example.

As I said above, the skyrocketing real estate prices during a period did result in problems of excessive property taxes, and so there was a big appetite to do *something*.

It's just that instead of doing the right thing, and adjusting the taxes, the radical right grabbed the issue and the left defaulted, and so what got done was prop 13.

They took some things that couldn't and shouldn't get passed on their own - *commercial* property tax slashing, and changing the tax requirement from 50% to 66% -and bundled them in with the very popular reduction on *residential* property taxes - indeed not just a reduction but a pretty extreme rule letting them barely go up, that made neighbors pay very different taxes on similar properties, and 'trapped' people in big homes.

In fact, if I recall correctly, that may have been a reason why CA started clearly limiting ballot initiatives to one issue, because that bundling is a terrible way to sneak things in.

If you want to try to say something simple about California voters, start by explaining our electing Jerry Brown and Ronald Reagan back to back.

After that you can explain how they recalled a decent governor who was the enemy of Enrion, when they got angry about Enron, to replace him with a close friend of Enron.

CA has a bunch of different groups, some tea baggers, some liberals, plenty in the 'middle', plenty almost apolitical, many minorities.

They vote a variety of ways, sometimes good and sometimes bad. They did not understand the diaster prop 13 would be.

It was a backlash used to get bad things passed, not all that different from 9/11 getting used to get support for the Iraq war that the public was otherwise against.

Would you say the US is filled with Neocons because the Iraq war occured (with Bush re-elected)? No, and prop 13 doesn't prove voters were largely radical right.

That's the usual blah blah blah radical right wing blah blah that I expected to see. You just don't get the concept of the people being fed up with more and more taxes. Government spending needs to go down, not taxes go up. Prop 13 controls part of the equation, the idiot legislature controls the other. If they live within their means, there is no problem, but the idiots in the legislature can't make that happen, they want to keep spending.

Also, eskimo, I don't know how it works out there in Cali, but I live in Ohio, and around here the property taxes are not used to fund the state government, they are generally used to fund local government and schools. That's also the case in the other states in this area. Your contention that all the other states can use property taxes as a solid reliable base of taxation to fund their activities doesn't seem right if many states don't use property taxes to fund the state at all.
 

alphatarget1

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2001
5,710
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Originally posted by: Double Trouble

Also, eskimo, I don't know how it works out there in Cali, but I live in Ohio, and around here the property taxes are not used to fund the state government, they are generally used to fund local government and schools. That's also the case in the other states in this area. Your contention that all the other states can use property taxes as a solid reliable base of taxation to fund their activities doesn't seem right if many states don't use property taxes to fund the state at all.

CA state gov has been robbing local governments for funds, from what I have heard.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
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Originally posted by: Double Trouble

That's the usual blah blah blah radical right wing blah blah that I expected to see. You just don't get the concept of the people being fed up with more and more taxes. Government spending needs to go down, not taxes go up. Prop 13 controls part of the equation, the idiot legislature controls the other. If they live within their means, there is no problem, but the idiots in the legislature can't make that happen, they want to keep spending.

Also, eskimo, I don't know how it works out there in Cali, but I live in Ohio, and around here the property taxes are not used to fund the state government, they are generally used to fund local government and schools. That's also the case in the other states in this area. Your contention that all the other states can use property taxes as a solid reliable base of taxation to fund their activities doesn't seem right if many states don't use property taxes to fund the state at all.

Property taxes aren't used to fund the state government in California either, but since the passage of prop 13, the bottom fell out of property taxes in the state, and school districts are now heavily reliant upon the state for their funding. As shown in this study,, school funding used to be 60% through local taxes and 34% from the state. Now it is 67% state funding and 22% local (property) taxes. The local districts simply can't support themselves on such low property tax revenues, and so the state makes up for it out of the general fund.

So it's not that California uses property taxes to fund the state, it's that the state has to raise considerably more funds through other means to cover the shortfall in local property taxes. It all amounts to the same thing.

As for 'the idiots in the legislature want to keep spending', this has absolutely nothing to do with that. Because of the way they have been forced to structure their tax base, it is super unstable. They can have tons of funds one year, and have them all disappear the next. What you're suggesting they do is utterly impossible because most state expenditures are not one time things. Do you start building a highway and then abandon it halfway through when funding dries up? Talk about a waste of taxpayers' money. Do you cut taxes one year when you have a surplus, only to raise them again the next when the surplus goes away? You can't 'live within your means' very easily when your 'means' fluctuates wildly from year to year. How do you plan ahead?

And no, no state needs a prop 13. You can argue for lower levels of taxation, that's fine. To lower them in this way was exceptionally foolish however. Other states have learned from California's catastrophic mistake, and you won't see another prop 13 style thing pass ever again I imagine.

One final thing, the radical right in California actually has considerable influence on state government, as there is a 2/3rds majority required to pass the budget that the Democrats don't have.
 

EagleKeeper

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Oct 30, 2000
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If the locals can not live within their means, then they have a problem. Did it take them 20+ years to figure this out. In most other states the locals have a budget and must live within it.

If the lcoals are told they will get X dollars and the state provides X/2 because of state spending issues - who's fault is that.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
I would rather they not.

My area is enjoying the revenue from movie productions that are leaving Cali.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
Originally posted by: First
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: eskimospy
News flash: Right wing editorial highlights right wing governor's tax plan.

So what should be done to keep the taxbase from leaving the state?

California will be fine as-is. It's been a boom-bust tax base due to the fundamental structure of its taxation for quite awhile now. (thanks prop 13)

A smarter move would be to repeal prop 13, restore normal property taxation, and reduce other taxes to compensate.

It is probably going to take more than that to fix those problems.

No, probably not. California's main problem is its extremely unstable tax base. In good years, it's rich beyond any state's wildest dreams, in bad years it's teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. A large portion of this can be laid at the feet of stupid propositions like prop 13. (it has a few friends) Property taxation is generally a very stable form of income for the state and allows it to plan for future years accordingly.

Sure there are a few other things California could do like repeal prop 98 and eliminate the 2/3rds majority required for increases in taxation, but prop 13 is the main offender.

Raising taxes is not going to fix the issue.

It can sure help. There are reams of studies showing marginal tax increases replenish coffers while making almost zero difference in attracting business.

I haven't read any of those reams of data or anything but I do know dozens of people employed by movie productions that left Cali and came here based solely on taxes. I am still on your side though, we would rather Cali not take the business back.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
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Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If the locals can not live within their means, then they have a problem. Did it take them 20+ years to figure this out. In most other states the locals have a budget and must live within it.

If the lcoals are told they will get X dollars and the state provides X/2 because of state spending issues - who's fault is that.

The money the 'locals' can generate from taxation is insufficient to fund a normal education as we in America know it. Other states have 'local' budgets that are not constrained by crazy propositions.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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The locals can generate their own revenue via leveys if they choose to.

Funds already being collected that are supposed to be coming back from the state are not.

Apparently, up to this point the state was able to coverup the fact. Now they are refusing to return the collected funds back to the locals and are punishing the people also as a penalty.

California as a whole is going to have to get their ducks in a row and decide how they are going to determine priorities.

The politicians are forcing the people to come to the realization that spending can not continue at the level it is with the revenue currently available. It will affect state services, local services or both. The state being in control, is ensuring that the most visible impact to the general population will be affected first; even though it may have the smallest and easily remedeed impact.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
0
lol @ people saying right wingers in california are causing the problems. they're outnumbered here 10 to 1.... sure point to prop 8 all you want, that has more to do with religious beliefs of people who you would generally consider "liberal".

Oh on the part of "don't need to lower taxes, businesses will stay" is bs. I have 2 friends, one who is in the process of taking over his uncles business and another who runs his own small company and both have brought up moving their businesses to Las Vegas because they would save TONS in taxes.
 

EagleKeeper

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Oct 30, 2000
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Originally posted by: bfdd
lol @ people saying right wingers in california are causing the problems. they're outnumbered here 10 to 1.... sure point to prop 8 all you want, that has more to do with religious beliefs of people who you would generally consider "liberal".

Oh on the part of "don't need to lower taxes, businesses will stay" is bs. I have 2 friends, one who is in the process of taking over his uncles business and another who runs his own small company and both have brought up moving their businesses to Las Vegas because they would save TONS in taxes.

As previously stated, it is the small businesses that get hit the hardest and are willing to back it up for friendlier climates.

State taxes last year for NV were $150 for my business.
CA would be that much per week if I was lucky.
I can not see CA being 50x better for my business that NV.

 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,062
1
0
Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Originally posted by: bfdd
lol @ people saying right wingers in california are causing the problems. they're outnumbered here 10 to 1.... sure point to prop 8 all you want, that has more to do with religious beliefs of people who you would generally consider "liberal".

Oh on the part of "don't need to lower taxes, businesses will stay" is bs. I have 2 friends, one who is in the process of taking over his uncles business and another who runs his own small company and both have brought up moving their businesses to Las Vegas because they would save TONS in taxes.

As previously stated, it is the small businesses that get hit the hardest and are willing to back it up for friendlier climates.

State taxes last year for NV were $150 for my business.
CA would be that much per week if I was lucky.
I can not see CA being 50x better for my business that NV.

pretty fail math/economics there bro
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
The locals can generate their own revenue via leveys if they choose to.

Funds already being collected that are supposed to be coming back from the state are not.

Apparently, up to this point the state was able to coverup the fact. Now they are refusing to return the collected funds back to the locals and are punishing the people also as a penalty.

California as a whole is going to have to get their ducks in a row and decide how they are going to determine priorities.

The politicians are forcing the people to come to the realization that spending can not continue at the level it is with the revenue currently available. It will affect state services, local services or both. The state being in control, is ensuring that the most visible impact to the general population will be affected first; even though it may have the smallest and easily remedeed impact.

Just how much money do you think towns are going to be able to raise by local levies?! Are you crazy? That will never happen in any government, anywhere. As for California's rate of spending, you aren't understanding the fundamental nature of California's tax base. When the economy rebounds California will have a huge tax surplus. For like the 20th time, it's not a question of 'living within your means', it's that it's impossible to plan for what your 'means' will be. I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to understand this.

I don't think you are aware of just how low property taxes in California are. California is 46th out of 50 for property tax revenues, taxing at a rate almost 1/4 of high property tax states like Texas. You can't fund schools that way, not in a million years.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
California just started tax incentives for movies Yeah!

25% for movies under 10mill and 20% for movies over 10 mill. The indie market is crushed so lets hope this helps bring it back. I know of one movie personally that was going to be filmed out of state but are now staying in :)