Lions and tigers and tax reform. Oh my!
You know that real reform is about to happen when opponents let loose their menagerie of hobgoblins and boogeymen.
Today’s LA Times was the forum for the tax raisers to complain about common sense tax policy. But they had to dress it up as a give-away, because that’s what you do when common sense is not on your side.
The common sense part: taxpayers pay taxes on income (profits) and can write off losses. But for many business taxpayers, their business cycles do not conform to the arbitrary dates of a tax year. Federal tax law has long recognized this fact of economic life, and has allowed taxpayers to write off losses going back two tax years and forward up to 20 years. (The latter is particularly helpful for businesses with long gestation periods, like biotech firms.)
California only recently agreed to partially conform to federal law, allowing write-offs of losses prospectively for ten years. But as part of their initial $8 billion tax increase to close the budget gap, Democrats proposed to suspend the ability to write off these losses for two years, but offered to extend the carryforward to 20 years. The suspension would amount to a $1.5 billion increase on business taxpayers.
Democratic Party Supporters’ Money Backs Redistricting Reform
There appears to be a widening crack in the wall of Democratic Party opposition to redistricting reform.
Recent ballot measures attempting to reform the redistricting process, which creates district boundaries from which candidates run for legislative offices, has often pitted one major political party against the other.
Not this time.
While some Democrats are claiming that Proposition 11, the redistricting reform on the November ballot, is a “Republican power grab,” and the state Democratic Party is officially opposed to Proposition 11, usually faithful donors to Democratic causes are putting up money in support of the measure, reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s John Wildermuth.
Economic Suicide
Rumors of a budget deal are one thing. But the vast majority of the Republicans in the Legislature have no desire to be participants in the assisted economic suicide of California. New figures on California’s tax burden are out from the Tax Foundation; California’s tax burden is now up to sixth highest in the nation. Republicans know that they were not elected to move California down the road to higher taxes and more burdensome regulations coupled with an abject failure to address waste and fraud.
In a prior budget battle, a handful of Republican legislators signed off on a Gray Davis budget and were rewarded with severe electoral retaliation. (Think Johannessen, Briggs, etc.) But this year, all but a handful of GOP legislators believe – and rightfully so – that a tax increase will solve absolutely nothing and, in both the short and long term, inflict irreparable damage to the Golden State.
Effects of Prop. 2 — the UN-SAFE Food Initiative
This November, Californians will be voting on Proposition 2 – the ‘Standards for Confining Farm Animals Statute.’ As a 4th generation family farmer, I oppose Prop. 2 – a risky, dangerous and costly measure for California that, if passed, will:
- threaten Californians food safety and public health
- hurt California agriculture, the state’s #1 economic industry
- drive nearly all California egg farmers, including cage-free farmers, out of business in the state.
Californians need to understand that Prop. 2 is not about the treatment of animals, instead it is about the standards for housing egg-laying hens. California’s current housing standards are the most stringent in the nation protecting farm animals’ well being and keeping our food safe.