Tax Chatter on Tax Day
There is a lot of conversation about taxes lately, perhaps
not strange since taxes are due to both the federal and state governments
today. But, the tax chatter is about potential new taxes that some or all citizens
will have to pay if certain politicians or interest groups have their way.
President Barack Obama last week called for a tax on the
wealthy, which he described as tax filers making over $250,000 a year. Governor
Jerry Brown continues his campaign to re-start the state income, sales, and car
taxes the legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger put in place in 2009. And, as
noted by Steve Harmon in yesterday’s Contra
Costa Times, labor unions are organizing a number of approaches to tax
increases in California, including ballot measures to tax such products as oil
and tobacco.
One tax that received attention in Harmon’s article is the
California Federation of Teachers’ proposal to tax the wealthy. The president’s
proposal on taxing upper end taxpayers could put a crimp in that approach here
in California. On the other hand, should congress stall the president’s plan, the
debate to tax the rich would move front and center here if the union qualifies
a ballot measure.
Make Vernon a Special District
Peter Corselli, official of a long-established Vernon industry, is right
to worry about the effect that passage of AB 46, the bill to
disincorporate Vernon, will have on businesses located there. The
vultures, in the form of annexationists, are already drooling. If the
end result of dissolving the city must be annexation, the bill would be
a disaster.
But there is another option. Disincorporate Vernon and simultaneously
turn it into the Vernon Industrial Special District. That special
district will provide Vernon with a government that gives business
owners and labor the security, stability and certainty that they
currently enjoy without the rule of a self-perpetuating cabal that has
run that city for over a century.
California has thousands of special districts for mosquito abatement,
flood control, libraries and dozens of other services. Surely it would
be common sense for the legislature to establish a Vernon Industrial
Special District, dedicated to promoting industry, as the city is
disincorporated.
Pension Debt – Is it real?
The Orange County appeal of the pension benefits for
Deputies was denied by the California Supreme Court. In a careful review of the decision made by
the Appeals Court, we find the same self-serving protection that judges always
give to government employee pensions.
The issue arose because exuberant promises of high
investment returns in 1999 made pension grants look very affordable. The OC Supervisors in 2001 approved the
changes, and affirmed them in renewals of the bargaining agreement in 2003,
2005 and 2007. But in 2008, the new OC board
looked at the issue as one granting a huge benefit that was not properly funded,
a $100 million unfunded grant of deferred compensation for services already
provided.
Fear Tactics Dominate Budget Hearing
“Cuts to the California dream” are coming, California Superintendent of Schools Tom Torlakson warned the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee on Thursday. If an all-cuts budget is adopted by the Legislature, also coming are pink slips for teachers and school closures, he said.
“We are here because there are no options. Smoke and mirrors have been used,” said Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, as he described the dire condition of the state’s education system.
But Republican Sen. Bob Huff of Diamond Bar provided a different take on California’s education system and where spending increases have brought us. “Since 1970 through 2010, the number of students in California has increased by 9 percent, while school employees have increased by 98 percent,” he said. “The cost per student is up 275 percent, but test scores — there has been zero increase in test scores.”
The hearing appeared at times to be a staged exchange between Torlakson, himself a former state Senator and Assemblyman, and his fellow Democrats on the committee. Torlakson said that 19,000 teachers have already received pink slips, with more to come, and 110 school districts are facing insolvency.