Poll suggests local focus may be Brown’s best hope
A new independent poll released Wednesday suggests that a scaled back plan to increase taxes and dedicate all of the money to local government might be Gov. Jerry Brown’s best hope of finding new revenue to help balance the budget.
The poll by the Public Policy Institute of California finds that likely voters overwhelmingly want local government officials to have more say in how state money is spent in their communities.
The poll also shows that of all the major services, prisons are the ones voters least want to protect with their pocketbooks.
Finally, voters think they should be asked to weigh in on the tax plan, although many of those who want to vote apparently want to vote against it.
But the secret to overcoming that opposition might be to play on the voters’ preference for keeping government close to home.
A Sad Goodbye to Matt Fong
Matt Fong could throw a snowball with accuracy. I know. I
was on the receiving end of a couple of sharply tossed snowballs sliding down a
hill in Big Bear when our families got together years ago. Matt was a spirited
guy, a dedicated public office holder, and an example of someone who could
paddle through strong political currents with his character unscathed.
I asked Matt once how, as a Republican who served as
California’s Treasurer and ran for the U.S. Senate, he dealt with politics with
his mother, March Fong Eu, longtime California Secretary of State and a
Democrat. Matt explained that his mother respected his political beliefs as he
respected hers. I assumed his confidence came from the certain feeling that he
had his mother’s vote in the privacy of the ballot booth.
Will Crashing Real Estate Kill Prop. 13?
Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.
A demogogue is a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace. And a demographer is someone who studies the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.
Thus, to coin a phrase, a ”demogogue-grapher” is someone who studies human population with his emotions and a political agenda.
Such must be the case of USC Professor of Demography Dowell Myers, interviewed by columnist and Proposition 13 hater Steve Lopez in the May 31 issue of the Los Angeles Times, “Debunking the Myth of Prop. 13”.
According to Myers, the decline in the number of families and children at the bottom of the population pyramid means that, in the future, there will be a surplus of family housing and the price will drop out of the bottom of single family residential housing. Thus Myers asserts that Prop. 13 is “toast” because, according to him, it only works in a constantly rising real estate market.
‘Tax the Rich’ Code for Taxing Job Creators
Years of overtaxation and overregulation have given
California the second highest unemployment rate in the nation. Even so some of
our state lawmakers still believe that punishing success is a recipe for job
growth.
Efforts by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and
other Democrat legislators to increase taxes on high income earners will
actually punish California job creators and worsen volatile state revenues.
According to the Tax Foundation, California already has the
third highest income tax rate and one of the most progressive tax structures in
the nation. The top one percent of California’s income earners have incomes of
$500,000 or more per year and pay up to 50% of all income tax revenues received
by the state each year, according to a report by the non-partisan Legislative
Analyst’s Office.