Californians support tax hikes to help close budget gap

Los Angeles Times ^ | April 23, 2011 | By Evan Halper

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Sacramento - California voters agree with Gov. Jerry Brown that tax increases should help close the state budget deficit, and they want to vote on his plan for raising the revenue.

Sixty percent of those surveyed, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, said they back such an election. The alternative being pushed by most GOP lawmakers — forgoing an election and balancing the budget by cutting more from state services — was supported by just 33%.

Support for the cuts-only approach dropped to 25% when voters were informed that it would probably require reductions in school funding, according to the survey conducted for The Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

The only cuts favored by large majorities were those with minimal effects on the deficit — reductions in government worker benefits and perks, for example.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[BenLurkin]

No, we don’t.

[samtheman]

Idiots get what they deserve. And they will get it.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

LA Slimes is such a democrat party tool.

[BealNoortz]

California is home to more stupid people than any other place I can think of. They are going to get what they have coming, and it won’t be pretty. How it got this way, I don’t know. But I don’t want these people moving to my state.

[rawhide]

Wonder how many illegals were in that survey? How many welfare babies voted so they would keep receiving free handouts from people who are actually working? Be interested to see what the totals were from people actually paying taxes.

[Stepan12]

Phony reporting here? What a shock. Maybe Californians also support free hospital care for illegal aliens undocumented workers.

[mazda77]

The sorry thing is that it will be from our pockets.

[bill1952]

Sixty percent of those surveyed...

In East LA maybe.

[Texas Eagle]

Californians support tax hikes to help close budget gap

We do??? Nobody asked me.

[Carry_Okie]

These findings are based on a random sample survey of 1,503 registered voters in the state of California, conducted from April 7th - 17th, 2011. Interviews were conducted by telephone using live interviewers from Interviewing Services of America. Voters were randomly selected from a list of registered voters statewide and reached on a landline or cell phone depending on the number they designated on their voter registration. Sixteen percent of this sample was reached on a cell phone. Up to five attempts were made to reach and interview each randomly selected voter. In order to examine distinctions and include a wider range of questions in this study, some questions were split into random half-samples, with one-half of 751 voters and the other half of 752 voters.

[dfwgator]

“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that guy behind the tree.”

[Texas Eagle]

The only cuts favored by large majorities were those with minimal effects on the deficit — reductions in government worker benefits and perks, for example.

LOL! Well, hell, then why even cut them?

[A CA Guy]

I agree, this is BS.

Where are all the government employee cuts?
Where are all the spending cuts and future restrictions on spending?

We have all the good businesses and wealthier people leaving because we are well into being a big entitlement welfare state now.
We draw the most illegals because we also give them benefits (which should be CUT).
Poor people from elsewhere should be poor in their own country and stop living off of us.
Where are the cuts in the off the hook pensions?
How about all the cuts needed in all the added overtime given to people retiring to bump up their retirement?

[Sleeping Freeper]

Biased poll from the LA Times? Is water wet?

[BenLurkin]

They forgot to call me, and if they had I wouldn’t have talked to them.

[Texas Eagle]

Support for the cuts-only approach dropped to 25% when voters were informed that it would probably require reductions in school funding,

Ohhhhhhh....so when it came to cutting spending, the lemmings were "informed" that it would "probably" lead to reductions in school funding.

But when asked about raising taxes, the questioner asked no such clarifying "information" as to what tax increases would "probably" lead to. Only that it "should" lead to reduced deficits.

Sounds like an objective poll to me.

[skyman]

Bull.

I’d like to see the questions.

[TaxPayer2000]

... reached on a landline or cell phone depending on the number they designated on their voter registration.

This explains why I was not called. I have never put my phone number on the voter registration card.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

Good old California voters. Do they all smoke Pot?