Crafting a Green Tax Policy
“Think globally, act locally.”
It’s the most fundamental principle of the modern environmental movement. But, for all the big talk from green politicians, government continues to block individuals from taking the small steps that will ultimately save the planet. Nowhere is this problem better demonstrated than in the state’s tax regulations of bio-fueled vehicles.
Bio-fuels, which include even that leftover fryer grease from McDonalds, are one of the most promising carbon neutral alternatives to fossil fuels. The LA Times reports that as many as 250,000 vehicles nationwide run on used cooking oil. In Orange County, Beach Benz has capitalized on the idea by offering vegetable oil conversion kits for its customers. Last year, state and local media outlets profiled the environmentally responsible actions of Dave Eck, a Bay Area mechanic who converted his Hummer to run on used vegetable oil.
Tax Commission: What’s the Mission?
The newly formed state tax commission – formally, the Commission on the 21st Century Economy – got off to a lively start at its first meeting on the UC San Diego campus yesterday. Commissioners couldn’t agree on the commission’s mandate.
The chief disagreement occurred over whether the commissioners are supposed to recommend a tax system that is revenue neutral or not.
Former Assembly member Fred Keeley, referring to the governor’s executive order creating the commission, said the commission was not charged with bringing in a program that was revenue neutral. Commission Chairman Gerald Parsky agreed that the text of the order did not speak of revenue neutrality but he insisted that the governor, Assembly Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem indicated at the press conference announcing the formation of the commission that revenue neutrality was a clear objective.
Keeley responded that the governor had an opportunity to call for revenue neutrality in his order and didn’t do it so that need not be a guiding principle of the commission.
It’s time for 15 economic recovery policies in California
Yesterday, a coalition of employers from a wide spectrum of industries — including the manufacturers — deeply concerned about California’s economy delivered to legislators and the governor their recommendations for policies to support job growth and improve state finances.
California is dependent on income, sales, corporate and property tax for its general fund dollars. More than 50 percent of the general fund is dependant on income tax alone. Our government programs survive on profitable businesses employing a high-wage workforce. With the country’s third worst unemployment rate (8.4 percent), and few growing sectors outside government services, the state will not get out of the current crisis without improving the business climate.
Here’s What We Do With the Banks
Some may have noticed last week that Bank of America, having eaten heartily at the table and gobbled up a few other failed companies like Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, has now lined up for Federal TARP BailOut money – your tax dollars at work.
Tom Friedman’s Sunday NYT column talks about Pres. Obama convening a meeting of the 300 top US Bankers and having a “Come to Jesus” lecture – Friedman’s thinking, though bold, was not bold enough and was exclusionary of billions of humans on this planet – I would expand that to a “Come to Jesus/Moses/Buddha/and Everybody Else, Be They Atheist, Pagan, Agnostic, Wiccan, included, for Our Last Chance to Get This Banking Thing Right.”
As we peer over the cliff in this still young year to glimpse what is promised to be an even nastier 2009 than 2008 was, it is apparent that the recipients of the first $350Billion in BailOut funds, whatever they used them for, did not use them to loosen up the still frozen-solid Wonderful World of Credit, a bedrock of our magnificently successful national experiment in Capitalism, with a capital “C.”