Congratulations
Californians! Sunday marked this year’s Cost of Government Day. For 235 days
Californians worked to cover government spending – for the next week and four
months, we can finally work for ourselves.
If you
pay close attention to the cost of government, you may be thinking to yourself,
"wasn’t Tax Freedom Day, the day we finish working off our tax bill, on April
20th?" That’s right. But, as we
all know too well, the government has a knack for spending billions of dollars
more than it takes in, and we have to pay for that too. After eight months, we have finally
finished paying for our state’s massive over-spending problem – eleven days
later than last year. And what did you get for those eleven days? Did you get a
better DMV? Less traffic on your morning commute? Better service from the post
office? I don’t think so.
How do
we come to this number? The Center for
Fiscal Accountability, a project of
Americans for Tax Reform, just released its annual report which calculates the
cost of government for all 50 states.
The study adds the cost of the federal government for every citizen to
the tax burden faced by the citizens of each state. This year, California comes out 47th, behind Connecticut,
New York and New Jersey. The
citizens of Connecticut, the last in the nation to let off the yoke of the
State, have to work through September 7th to cover their state’s spending.
We’re only 15 days off.
Sadly,
this eye-popping date is no surprise.
It is the direct result of an economic policy that taxes and regulates
our citizens out of business, out of jobs, and out of the state completely.
As the
Center for Fiscal Accountability so rightly points out, the state legislature
passed the largest increase in California history last February. Since then, we have seen two new state
deficits, $26 billion after February’s budget, and now $8-$10 billion as a
direct result of the July budget mess.
Despite an income tax hike of .25% and a cut to the child tax credit,
income tax revenue was down 11.5% this July, according to the State
Controller’s Office.
The
Board of Equalization announced on Friday that second quarter sales tax
receipts were down 18.74% for the second quarter of 2009, meaning local
governments will see significantly reduced sales tax revenues at the same time
that the state government is taking $2 billion from city coffers. Orange County cities alone are losing
over $2 million – the city of Villa Park will not receive a sales tax payment
this month. Worse yet, the Labor
Department reports that California’s jobless rate rose to 11.9% this month,
the highest unemployment rate since records began. Do we need any more proof that higher taxes kill jobs and
productivity?
As long
as policymakers continue to strangle the population with ever higher taxes and
spending, we can expect to see the cost of government consume more and more of
the year. Add another 8 days and
Cost of Government Day will equal 75% of the year. Just one more week after
that and we beat Connecticut. Outrageous.