Opinion: California doesn’t need more taxes — no on Prop. 30
By Michelle Steel
Proposition 30, on the Nov. 6 ballot, will ask Californians to raise their own taxes by about $6.6 billion to fund California’s bloated government. Proposition 30 won’t fix our schools or stabilize the state budget; it will increase tax volatility and leave our children facing more of the same.
Proposition 30 will raise income tax rates by one to three percentage points on Californians who earn $250,000 or more, for seven years – making our top income tax rate the highest in the nation. It will also raise the state sales tax, currently the highest in the nation, by one quarter of a cent, for four years.
The rationale for the higher taxes is that top-earning Californians should “pay their fair share.” Class warfare may be a good political tactic, but it is bad policy. Proposition 30 will make life for Californians more difficult across the wealth spectrum.
The state Franchise Tax Board data released earlier this year that shows that from 2007-09, the income of California’s top 1 percent declined the most of any income class. Yet, they continued to account for over 35 percent of state tax revenue, down from about 50 percent in 2007, and now their contributions hover around 40 percent. A recent study by the California Budget Project says this group would account for 81.2 percent of Prop. 30 funds. While the CBP says that’s a good thing, the Legislative Analyst’s Office says these revenues “could be subject to multibillion dollar swings” because of economic fluctuations that affect investments much more than wages and salaries.
The lowest-income earners in California pay little to no income tax, but they pay a lot of sales tax. According to the Board of Equalization, the bottom fifth of earners spend 82 percent of their income on taxable purchases. While the tax increase on the bottom 20 percent will be small in comparison with the top 1 percent, it won’t be insignificant at a time when every penny counts.
These tax hikes will hit everybody, and they will hurt the economy. After all, an economy is made up of the business owners, employees, and consumers who participate in it. When these individuals have fewer dollars in their wallets, it becomes harder to grow a business; to get transportation to work or to buy food, clothing, and everything else we need.
With less production, less consumption, and less capital with which to increase either of those, there is less economic growth and less work available for those who need it.
Supporters of Proposition 30 claim that the money taken out of our pockets will go to schools. The supporters’ rebuttal to arguments against Proposition 30 included in the official Voter Guide says, “Proposition 30 provides billions in additional funds to reduce class sizes and restore programs like art and PE.” But there is no evidence that classrooms will benefit from the increase in funds.
Even the California School Boards Association – a supporter of Proposition 30 – has said it wants “to make it clear to the public that the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools. Instead, it bolsters the General Fund with new revenue.” The money that will go to schools, because of the California Constitution’s minimum-funding requirement for education, will be spent to restore “some of the funds already owed to schools,” not increased services for students.
The higher taxes in Propositin 30 will hurt the economy by taking more from Californians, making it more difficult to save for the future, to create jobs, or to find them. It will increase state spending without increasing student performance. And it will aggravate the revenue volatility that has plagued state budgeting for decades.
Please join me in voting no on Proposition 30.
Michelle Steel is vice chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization. This column first ran in the Orange County Register.
Great article of honesty.
Here’s and idea!!
Have these overpaid, Gov. admin’s, educational admin’s., Union Boss’s disquised as working public servents, return 10% of their assets to the general fund. You know, the bank accounts, CD’s, stocks, second and third homes, Lexus’s, Mercedes, Jag’s, Caddies.
Too bad the cruises, world wide travel, expensive luncheons, banquets, so called training seminar weekends can’t be returned but the COST of all this can be computed and sactioned from the guilty party’s.
Just a solid thought, time to make these theives start a little payback to the taxPAYERS!!
Any honest legislator up for a bill that starts this ball rolling??
Time to clean house the sewers have been backing up for a long time!!
I am with Marlene, SPOT ON !
We have become a nation where the most unproductive are in effect stealing from the productive.
I don’t mean the bankers and big corporations, I mean the people across this country that made it work, the small business people that California hates so much. THe 33 percenters…
The rugged individuals with the guts to make things happen. They have to a large part left California.
Shame on California and off the cliff you go.
In the end you’ll have nothing.
If prop 30 fails we are looking at shorting the school year this year in Lake Tahoe unified by about 3 weeks. This will not be good for our Students or our town!
Vote YES on 30!
mike: we are outtta $…
Pay cuts to all administrators. There is NO reason that so many make hundred of thousands. That is where the waste is. Make these pay cuts and put the money back for the kids.
I wish the issue was that easy to solve. Our schools have been cut 20 billion in the past six years and we cannot take an additional 6 billion in cuts.
Prop 30 only increases income tax on individuals making over $250,000 and families making over $500,000 annually.
Please join me in voting YES on 30!
Calif teachers union rank in the top 10, while spending on the kids is in the bottom 10. A fix should come from there first before adding more taxes.
Mike please explain why we are paying “two” teachers to perform your one job teaching auto shop. Why aren’t you at school teaching 60% of the 180 day school year? Why are you wasting our tax payers money so you can post on this blog to us to pay even more in taxes?
Please Vote No on both school tax measures!
MULTIPLE LIES COMING FROM THE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY ASSEMBLY IN THE SANCTUARY STATE.
Stephen Frank Stated on 11/14/2012 on California deficits as follows at http://capoliticalnews.com/
In the past two months, the cash deficit of the State has gone from $22.3 billion to $24.7 billion—just for the first four months of the year.
Plus the State OWES $12.5 billion to K-12 education
It owes $15 billion stolen from Trust Funds to cover cash deficit
It owes $10 billion BORROWED to cover the rest of the cash deficit. The State owes the Feds $10 billion for the loan to the unemployment insurance fund—so California can continue to send out unemployment checks.
That is a total of $71.5 billion—and there is more. Yet, the State claims “California faces a $1.9 billion deficit through June 2014, significantly smaller than in recent years after voters passed two tax initiatives last week, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office said last Wednesday”
They claim we will have this small deficit, instead of $71 billion because of the $9 billion Prop. 30 is going to bring in, in new revenues! Any wonder our kids are illiterate—this is the math taught in our schools. Government lies—and tries to make you feel good about being insolvent.
Seems like marijuana must be legal in government offices, he has studied.
HOW MANY LEGISLATORS ARE BRAZENLY LYING ABOUT THE TRUE DEFICIT IN THE 50 STATES?
California has the highest population of illegal aliens who have settled there. Thousands of children of illegal alien parents gaining automatic citizenship and the cost is thrown at the taxpayers. Health care and other free handouts that are the right of citizens is being disbursed to anybody who sneaks across the border or steps off a plane. None of the 50 states is exempt from this silent attack on our country or the pilfering of their general treasuries. Now the Democrats have their majority public entitlements will be pouring out across the state to all the “Freeloader voters” the spongers and the people who have no intention of finding a job. A large proportion who pay no taxes at all, the parasitic people who are a great windfall for the Democrats and Liberals, who believe we owe them a living?
Obviously there is an exception to this rule, whereas there are special needs people, the sick and handicapped in some form or other. There are the homeless veterans and plenty other others, but we have become an public assistance nation, but some of the 49 percent that Mitt Romney talked about have scrounged their way through life and allowed the taxpayers to carry them. A great number have figured a way to deceive the welfare system, which is a stain on the real workers. Because the system could easily be thwarted, with stolen ID, the elderly and the sick lose their major assistance to the scroungers. When we cannot truly look after our troops returning from the warzones and still have millions of homeless without hope, then why are we either bringing in millions of legal immigrants, other than highly skilled workers that are always welcome?
Why is not illegal entry a Felony? CAN ANYBODY ANSWER THAT QUESTION?
IS CALIFORNIA TAXPAYERS COMMITTED TO SUBSIDIZE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FOREVER?
BEFORE ANY PASSAGE OF IMMIGRATION REFORM FINDS ITS WAY THROUGH THE CONGRESS, TWO BILLS ARE A NECESSITY TO EVENTUALLY STOP THE INGRESS OF ANY MORE FLOWS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. 1. THE LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT CONTAINING MANDATORY E-VERIFY AND HALT ILLEGAL ALIENS TAKING JOBS AND HOLDING EMPLOYERS ACCOUNTABLE. 2. A SIMPLE AMENDMENT TO END THE BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP BILL TO STEM THE INFLOW OF SMUGGLED BABIES EITHER UNBORN OR AS AN INFANT, INTO THE UNITED STATES TO GAIN INTENTIONAL RIGHTS TO BE A CITIZEN AND A MASSIVE FINANCIAL BURDENING THE U.S. TAXPAYER. 3. THE REINTRODUCTION OF FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH 2006 SECURE FENCE ACT IN ITS ENTIRETY. THIS IS A DOUBLE PARALLEL FENCE STRETCHING ALONG THE BORDER OF THE U.S STATES AND ITS SOUTHERN NEIGHBOR. AMERICA MUST REDUCE SANCTUARY CITIES, CHAIN MIGRATION AND THE ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION. 4. A GOVERNMENT ISSUED PICTURE ID CARD, WHICH CONTAINS INFORMATION TO USE IN PROVING WHO YOU ARE?