When is a Temporary Tax ‘Temporary’?
The Senate Democrats want to continue ‘temporary’ taxes passed in last year’s budget negotiations.
The temporary tax extension is part of a plan to raise taxes $4.9 billion to help deal with the state budget deficit. With the legislature notching a 16% approval rating in the latest PPIC poll, extending temporary taxes will provide another blow to the legislature’s reputation.
The Democratic proposal includes extending a quarter-percent of the income tax surcharge scheduled to end December 31; extending a $217 per dependent reduction in the state’s dependent income tax credit; raising the vehicle license fee to 1.5 percent from 1.15 percent after being increased from 0.65 percent last year; and suspending corporate tax changes set to begin January 1. For good measure, they added an increase in the state’s alcohol tax that was not part of last year’s budget deal.
Arizona Raises Taxes – Could California be Next?
Voters in Arizona agreed to increase their sales tax by one cent for three years. And it wasn’t close – 64 percent of voters approved the measure, running away in 14 of 15 counties.
Are we witnessing a tax-friendly trend by voters in western states, as some have observed? After all, just last January, voters in Oregon also approved tax
increases. But Oregon is, as Jean Ross paints it, "a blue-green state,"
while Arizona’s leanings are crimson-red. And Arizonans increased the
broad-based sales tax, which comes out of everybody’s pocket, while
Oregonians increased the burden on the reviled upper income and
corporate taxpayers.
So what do the Oregon and Arizona efforts have in common? Most obvious
is campaign financing: Oregon government unions outspent taxpayers
by about 1.5 to one; they poured into the Oregon campaign what in
California would have been the equivalent of a sixty million dollar
effort.
Zurich vs. LA: Which is the More Democratic City?
Zurich and Los Angeles share an intriguing political distinction: each is the largest city in one of the world’s two greatest centers of direct democracy.
California and Switzerland use initiatives and referenda more often than any place in the world, and have for more than a century, when Los Angeles followed Zurich’s model and instituted the first municipal system of direct democracy in the U.S. But direct democracy has been challenged in both places.
In Los Angeles tonight, I’m moderating a free, public Zocalo Public Square event that compares the democratic structures of LA and Zurich, and of California and Switzerland. My hope is that the comparison may give us some ideas about how to make democracy in California, and in LA, work better.
California Voters Urged to Vote ‘Yes’ on Proposition 14
As the former Chair of the Green Party of Washington State, I wholeheartedly endorse Proposition 14 in California.
It is unfortunate, and misguided, that third parties should find
themselves aligned with the Republican and Democratic Parties in trying
to dissuade California voters from supporting the Prop 14, Open Primary
initiative.
As the Green Party chair, I have had experience working on campaigns in
the state of Washington prior to the adoption of the "Top Two Primary."
Greed and Ambition Fuel Prop. 14
Promoters of Proposition 14 on the June ballot are calling it the "open" primary.
Ah yes, "open" makes it sound so inclusive, so liberating, so
egalitarian — what could possibly be wrong with that? If you pay
taxes in California, the answer is: plenty!
Prop. 14 is the result of collusion between an ambitious politician,
newly appointed Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, and entrenched Sacramento
spending interests. A year ago, then-Senator Maldonado, a Republican,
sold his vote for the most massive tax increase in the history of all
50 states, in return for an agreement to place a measure on the ballot
that would make it easier for him to run for statewide office. That
measure is Proposition 14.