California Completely Misses The Point
As California continues to melt down, an article today in the Oakland Tribune forecasts the challenge (tax revenue) and completely forgets where the money actually comes from.
They point out the welfare will need to be cut, along with schools, and state workers…
Enrollment in California classrooms could swell, public colleges may further limit enrollment and raise student fees, state workers could face another year of furloughs, and the poor may stop receiving welfare unless Schwarzenegger and lawmakers agree to raise revenue.
Since February, California has made nearly $60 billion in adjustments to its annual spending plan. That has come in the form of cuts to education and social service programs, temporary hikes in the sales and income taxes, an increase in the vehicle license fee and one-time infusions of cash from the federal stimulus package.
The stimulus funding and temporary taxes will begin to end at the end of 2010, leaving less revenue for the second half of the fiscal year that will begin in July. Compounding California’s problem are lawsuits that have reversed several of this year’s budget decisions, contributing to a $6 billion deficit in the current fiscal year.
The state also has been unable to adopt prison and health care cuts it passed in the last budget.
Here’s a novel idea:
Make the state friendly to business and people who pay taxes. Raise tax revenue by allowing people to make money. Profits = Jobs = Tax Revenue.
Creating a climate for growth is the only way out – increasing taxes and relying on handouts will only continue the death spiral.
The liberal idea that you can tax or spend your way out of a financial crisis has really paid off so far.
If they want to be genius, all they need to do is rid themselves of the laws that kill business, cut social spending and lower taxes… it will bring people and business back to the state and the tax revenue they so dearly need.
In BC, we have a government that is following California down this road… HST will be a killer, along with the new taxes we’ll be blessed with after the Winter Olympics. (No one has an inkling of how much the games will actually cost us.) Health care is already being rationed and as it increases in percentage of our budget spending, it will continue to rapidly decline.
The statistics for B.C. are daunting: Promised surpluses turned into record deficits; over 40,000 private sector jobs disappeared; exports fell by 25 per cent; and the number of EI recipients more than doubled.
If BC hopes to avoid the same fate as California, maybe now would be a good time to use the HST introduction to kill off personal income tax. Or to bring in a flat tax? At minimum, lower the provincial sales tax rate to counter the punishing effects HST will have on all the new items that will be taxed.
It may even save the Campbell Liberals from extinction.
The only reason they are introducing HST is the bribe that comes along with it… this one-time payment from the Federal Government is short sighted and will prove to cost more than they can imagine.
2010 should be the year of jobs, not taxes. Unfortunately, we are blessed with left-wing policies that ignore where the money comes from.
Daniel Hollinger at Hollinger International has links to articles on school reform
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:08 am
A complete meltdown in BC is exactly what we need, it’s the only way socialists will ever learn, so the sooner the better, otherwise it’s the continuing slow socializing of society and a longer dying period.
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:10 pm
What B.C needs; what California needs; what the Government of Canada needs; what the U.S. government needs is some truth in advertising. It is long past the time when politicians keep promoting their grandiose schemes as being ‘free’. There is no such thing as ‘free’ health care. There are no such things as ‘free’ education or ‘free’ municipal swimming pools or ‘free’ parks. Everything costs. This nonsense of burying the costs of a ‘free’ anything in budgetary planning, so as to hide them from the public is a fatal ruse. We need someone to stand up and say: “If you want this, here’s what it will cost.” And we don’t need the usual leftist number crunching that produces “projected savings by eliminating such and such a problem” or “anticipated revenue through savings from other programs.” This type of economic prestidigitation only clouds the issues to hide the inevitable pain. Tell everyone what a program will cost without the fancy number crunching. Quit reinforcing the idiom that “figures don’t lie, but liars figure”. If savings accrue from reduced costs in one area because of a new program in another; so be it. The savings will show up on the books in the future and the politicians can then puff out their chests and claim credit. Since the anticipated savings rarely happen, due to bureaucratic empire building, which simply layers one bureaucratic fiefdom on top of another, the politicians like to claim the glory before the chickens come home to roost. (Witness the Vancouver Olympic Games.) That way they can be long gone from active politics to some well-paying sinecure where they can collect their big fat pensions and their big fat pay cheques.
Do I expect this to happen? Only in my navel gazing stupor as the smoke from some illegal substance wafts about my head!
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Only way to save B.C. and California is for both of them to kick the shit out of the environmentalists and special interest groups.Get rid of this BS Global warming crap once and for all.Then lower taxes for individuals and business and get rid of half the government staff. There i have solved another problem and it is only the third day of the new year.
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Durward, I agree with what you say with just one small exception. The correction appears below.
“A complete meltdown in BC is exactly what we need, it’s the only way socialists will ever <<>>, so the sooner the better, otherwise it’s the continuing slow socializing of society and a longer dying period.”
Socialists believe themselves to be ideologically pure
and are incapable of learning.
Yer welcome…
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Ooops!
Something didn’t go quite right, there.
My attempted correction was to substitute
“it’s the only way socialists will ever learn”,
with
“it’s the only way socialists will ever BE STOPPED”.
Gotta learn how to work this keyboard someday.