How to save California - Slash taxes

[PokerGuy]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

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.

Texas does not have an income tax. Sure, CA has lower property taxes, thanks to the one smart thing people there have done (prop 13), but they are still taxed at an overall higher rate than other places. CA didn't all of a sudden start running a deficit last year when the economy went south -- they were running a massive deficit before that, and have been for a while.

From this website.

California's state spending has ballooned in the last decade at a rate much higher than the rate of inflation and rate of population growth in the state. According to Tom Campbell, California's finance director in 2004-2005, if the 1999-2000 budget of former California governor Gray Davis had been increased over the next decade by a factor representing the inflation rate and California's population growth in that time, California would now be experiencing a budget surplus, rather than a deficit even with the recent revenue decline due to the state's economic recession. Instead, California has had a 50% spending increase over the past five years.

In other words, your argument that it's really an issue of timing and tax base stability versus overspending doesn't hold water, they've simply increased spending way too much.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

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 than NV.

pretty fail math/economics there bro

How? Running the business where I am under the control/influence of CA will cost a minimum of %10 of the income; plus taxes & fees from CA

 

[piasabird]

All california has to do is start deporting illegals and speed up the process.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

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.

There's no shortfall in property taxes. We discussed this before. CA residents pay in the top 5 when it comes for property taxes because of our outrageous property rates.

Repealing prop 13 will just cause a lot of people to go broke. You can argue that Prop 13 drove up property values to retarded levels or whatever you want, but as it stands now, without prop 13 a lot of people would be financially screwed.

Then look at what CA voters wanted. Prop 1A and the stupid $40 billion HSR that's pointless. Our bond rating is JACK CRAP and while bonds != new taxes, you still have to cut a portion of your general fund to repay your bonds. Dumb voters thought it was getting HSR for free or something... Ugh.

 

[Craig234]

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".

The radical right has just over 1/3 of the legislature, which is enough to block any tax/budget bill, and they are radicals, all 'pledging zero taxes'.

When just three Republicans made a compromise with Democrats to get a budget passed, they are villified and targetted for recall movements.[/quote]

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Craig234

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".

The radical right has just over 1/3 of the legislature, which is enough to block any tax/budget bill, and they are radicals, all 'pledging zero taxes'.

When just three Republicans made a compromise with Democrats to get a budget passed, they are villified and targetted for recall movements.

[/quote]

Are they radicals becuase they do not agree with your POV?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: piasabird
All california has to do is start deporting illegals and speed up the process.

They will all flee to San Francsico and leech from there under the Council's protection

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Are they radicals becuase they do not agree with your POV?

Of course not. Many who disagree with my opinions are not radicals.

Interesting thing about most radicals though, they don't think they are.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Are they radicals becuase they do not agree with your POV?

Of course not. Many who disagree with my opinions are not radicals.

Interesting thing about most radicals though, they don't think they are.

It is funny that you should say that....

Being 'radical' is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you don't lose your common sense.

The sad fact is that most of the state legislature of full of politicians from polar opposite ends of the spectrum.... and really they simply represent the demographics of CA.

One one side we have poorer folks who feel they need more financial help and that more social services and spending are required to help them out. These people largely are undereducated and don't understand the long term economic implications of their requests/demands for more government spending, more taxes on corporations and the wealthy. The long term implications are that corporations and wealthy will GTFO of the state... as we are seeing now.

One the polar opposite side, we have a lot of wealthy people (and not so wealthy) who have all this money but no sense of obligation to society to try to help. Some of these wealthy worked really hard for their money, took risks, ya da and they'll be damned if they are gonna have money legislated out of their pocket.

So the problem here the mutual need and greed of the rich versus the poor and their mutual inability to reach a comfortable compromise. Neither the dem or rep's in CA have really tried to reach common ground and the economic situation in the state is going to hell. Ultimately, this isn't gonna hurt the rich and corporations... they have money, they can move and their businesses can too. For the poor and for the state of CA, it is much more problematic.

Someone on the dem side of the isle should of recognized this. And in reality, the entire legislature has failed their respective districts/demographics.

But what do we expect... society is becoming increasing insular and most of us care less and less about what happens to our own neighbors, let alone people we don't know (assuming we even know our neighbor, right?).

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: Craig234

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".

The radical right has just over 1/3 of the legislature, which is enough to block any tax/budget bill, and they are radicals, all 'pledging zero taxes'.

When just three Republicans made a compromise with Democrats to get a budget passed, they are villified and targetted for recall movements.

[/quote]

CA has no moderates because asshole partisans like you support gerrymandering.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
CA has no moderates because asshole liberals like you support gerrymandering.

wasn't gerrymandering stopped 2 elections ago?

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
CA has no moderates because asshole liberals like you support gerrymandering.

wasn't gerrymandering stopped 2 elections ago?

It was the most recent one that the measure finally passed to take power away from the legislators to a bi/nonpartisan group of judges to draw districts.

Craig and his public employee union bastards fought to kill the special election back in 06. One could argue that Arnold did a shitty job as governor. Sure he caved in to special interest and all of that since becoming governor, but at least he tried to tackle the problems.

I think CA would be in better shape had the measures been passed, but all of the unions (CTA, SEIU, to name a few) lined up to fight him and his measures, he lost and then he stopped trying to pick fights for his reelection (like any smart politician would do).

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: piasabird
All california has to do is start deporting illegals and speed up the process.

They will all flee to San Francsico and leech from there under the Council's protection

Anyone slightly to the right of Fidel is a "right wing radical" in Craig's mind

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Are they radicals becuase they do not agree with your POV?

Of course not. Many who disagree with my opinions are not radicals.

Interesting thing about most radicals though, they don't think they are.

LOL Irony post of the CENTURY!!!

 

[spidey07]

So I made the OP 1.5 weeks ago? Anything new going on with it, does this have any traction?

 

[shadow9d9]

Originally posted by: Patranus

Originally posted by: Craig234
WSJ editorial page is on my short list of trash not worth reading.

Pure deflection that doesn't address the issues raised in the study.

But what else should I expect from Craig234 when he runs into a study he doesn't agree with.

Republican solution to everything- cut taxes. It paid for the Iraq war!!!

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
Republican solution to everything- cut taxes. It paid for the Iraq war!!!

I get the feeling that when you're eighty you'll be preaching to your great grandchildren about the Iraq war. Your kids and grandkids will be rolling their eyes thinking, 'not again'!