[MaxMax]

They could tax everyone 90% and it still wouldn't fund their pensions for twenty years.
Many don't want to think about it, much like looking away when they see the train coming.

I'm in awe over the stupidity of voters.

[Kellis91789]

“I’m in awe over the stupidity of voters. “

As am I. I live in CA. We have a progressive income tax with a 10% top rate and a sales tax that is also 10%. But these are both so riddled with attempts to “unburden the poor” that each of these taxes would bring in more revenue if they were 3% each but without all the exceptions.

How stupid do voters have to be that they prefer what we’ve got over the broader 3% rates ? How stupid do they have to be to accept the Dim line that 3% is too high for some people to pay ? We have a celebration of underachievement run amok.

[Kellis91789]

I just finished reading the list of the Propositions pending in CA. One of them is called the “McCauley-Polsen Pension Recovery Act” and attempts to sidestep the bar on renegotiating union contracts with the Public Employees Unions.

Since those benefit payment amounts cannot be renegotiated for public employees already enrolled in those pension plans, this Proposition would eliminate that pension income exclusion from CA income taxes. Hey, I didn’t know that these outrageous pensions don’t even owe CA income tax, but apparently the pension income is tax-free !

Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of targeting specific groups or types of income for higher taxes. But ... I think these public employee pension incomes fall into the category of “ill gotten gains”, so I’m not at all averse to targeting them.

The Proposition is pretty tame and only makes that income taxable where it is mostly excluded just like SS income is. The top rate, therefore, is only 9.3%, and the brackets are the same as ordinary income taxes in CA. I’d go ahead and add a 90% marginal income tax bracket, withheld by CA from the pension payments no matter where the recipient now lives, on pensions and other benefits like healthcare valued above $50,000/yr.

Just like with the Maddoff Ponzi scheme, they “clawed back” profits from investors who had done nothing illegal but still benefited from the scheme. Let’s “claw back” from the recipients of these Public Employee Union schemes.