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Posted on 06/26/2026 7:54:20 AM PDT by Angelino97
California is a blue state, and one of the manifestations of its political orientation has been a tolerance for one of the nation’s highest levels of taxation.
The state’s tax rates on retail sales and personal and corporate incomes are among the highest of any state. Although tax rates on real estate are relatively moderate, high property values still translate into high bills for their owners.
Specific taxes, such as those on fuel, utilities, cigarettes, liquor, medical care, gambling, guns and ammunition, contribute even more. Overall, state and local governments and school districts collect around $400 billion in taxes every year, more than $10,000 per Californian, according to the Tax Foundation. That’s the fifth-highest per capita burden nationwide.
The state budget now being hammered out behind closed doors contains a raft of relatively minor taxes, such as a new one on managed health care services, and another on software.
Meanwhile, dozens of local governments are seeking voter approval of new sales and parcel taxes. The November ballot could contain several tax-related measures, some that would increase levies, and some that would curb tax hikes.
Collectively, they test the appetite of California voters for raising the state’s tax burden, and there’s some evidence that their tolerance is waning.
In May, the Public Policy Institute of California asked a sample of the state’s voters how they would address the state’s chronic budget deficits and was told that 55% of them they “want to pay lower taxes and have a state government that provides fewer services,” as researcher Dean Bonner put it. Even among Democrats, solving the state’s deficits mostly through taxes drew only 10% support.
A couple of weeks after the poll was taken, California had a primary election that included 92 local measures that would either increase taxes directly or approve bond issues that would automatically increase local property taxes to repay them. Only 57.5% of them were approved, the California Taxpayers Association calculated, a sharp drop from the 70% increase level of other recent elections.
Interestingly — and perhaps importantly — voters’ sourer attitude about taxes was even evident in notoriously progressive San Francisco. Its voters rejected Proposition D, which would have increased the city’s tax on large corporations whose executives are paid 100 times or more of rank-and-file employees, and Proposition C, which would have boosted the city’s gross receipts tax on businesses.
Tax increases in two other Democratic regions also bit the dust: a new tax on vacant residential properties in San Diego and a sales tax hike in Contra Costa County. Voters in Los Angeles County passed a sales tax increase for healthcare, but only by a paper-thin margin.
So what’s behind what appears to be a shift among California’s voters, who are overwhelmingly Democrats? It’s probably a reaction to the state’s ever-increasing costs of living.
The same revelatory PPIC poll about taxes also found that Californians are worried about inflation.
“More than four in ten Californians (44%) identified the cost of living and the economy as the most important issue facing the state; the second most commonly chosen issue was housing costs and availability (14%),” the pollsters revealed. “Economic anxiety has continued to grow in recent years; today, three in four Californians expect difficult economic times ahead for the state. About seven in ten or more across parties, regions, and demographic groups are pessimistic.”
Pessimistic voters tend to reject measures that would increase their living costs. We’ll find out much they dislike taxes in November.
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And then they pull the “D” lever. Do they can all FO as they get the govt they deserve.... good and hard.
“Voters”. They keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Then they move to a low tax state and start their voting patterns all over again. Rinse, lather, repeat............
Gee, that’s a shame. But they’re gonna “pass” anyway.
What? You mean that taxing “the rich” to get them to pay “their fair share” isn’t funding the massive spending program that California politicians promised voters would turn their lives into a paradise? You mean the taxes don’t only apply to “billionaires” or the “top 1%” or “the rich” (whatever that means)? Are voters finally wising up that government spending is an inefficient mess that goes into the pockets of the politically connected and very little of it actually helps the citizens?
An eternal ballot measure in California decade after decade, generation after generation, is desperately needed money to repair the decaying schools, at some point a Californian starts voting against anything that says “it is for the children”.
When you are 18 and uninformed so many ballot measures seem important and urgently needed, it can take a few elections before one sours on the same ol same ol.
The mental disconnect in these people is just mind-boggling.
Socialism is great until you run out of Other People’s Money.
First these blue states start giving money and benefits away to people who contribute very little, if anything and usually nothing.
Next they raise taxes on people who do work and contribute for the good.
Then more people who just suck the life and money out of society move in
Taxes are raised again.
Productive people try to escape, they just get sick of the crap and the taxes.
Society breaks down and more people leave.
The Blue state runs out of money, they try to raise taxes but there is no more to tax.
They turn to the Federal gooberment for a bail out. They get it because they are strongly represented by their booming population of freeloaders, their relations and other assorted lame brained liberals.
The rest of productive society is further taxed whether they are Blue or Red state.
What happens next? Can you guess?
This is where we have been going for at least the last 25 years and closer to 60.
Newsome/Pelosi/Brown (an incestuous trio) manufacture ballots by registering imaginary residents.
They have conspired to write laws legalizing it.
So go back and change your vote.
RE: ballot measures
Errr… has California in general and LA in particular finished counting their ballots yet? It’s been almost 3 weeks now.
What’s the point of ballots and voting when they’re going to count until they get the desired outcome?
I disagree with the analysis. Believe it or not, there is a faint pulse of common sense among my otherwise idiot fellow voters here in CA. It is not uncommon that they vote in commonsensical ways on ballot measures co treat to what you’d assume the liberal vote would be. Authorizing new reservoirs and reaffirming the death penalty are examples in the last 12 years or so—- though of course the rulers have refused to honor those votes. An increased tax on “the rich” failed a few years ago. I’m predicting the billionaires tax fails. As to local taxes, it has nothing to do with increased cost of living in particular, just people don’t like to pay taxes in general. Remember the increase in the sales tax in LA County failed on Election Day. It was only the same miraculous late ballots that pushed Raman past Pratt that caused the tax to be approved
Blue state California has a tolerance for:
* higher levels of taxation
* highest crime
* highest number on welfare
* highest number of homeless
* highest number of drug addicts
* highest number of illegal aliens
* highest number of foreign-born
* highest poverty level
* worst roads
* worst housing
* worst blight
* worst education
* worst graft and corruption
But the weather is nice.
The fraud here is staggering.
Same as Washington, the elections are kabuki and the results decided by who is counting.
We have an astounding amount of retards here, but the inability to have honest elections is the bigger issue.
Newsome should have been recalled and pratt should have been on the ballot, and Biden did not win CA in 2020. This is my opinion from actually talking to people throughout the state. This is my opinion based on verifiable election malpractices and outright fraud seen on this very forum in relation to those elections.
I’m sure enough ballots will be found to pass the measures the TPTB want to pass. If not I’m sure a judge will rule that they did
My sense is that the reason Kalifornia taxes are so ridiculously high is much, if not most, of it gets looted by the politicians and their criminal cronies. For example, ever wonder why the State’s infrastructure is in shambles, why the homeless problem only grows larger?
The only two things people object to about Obamacare is the name, and paying for it.
Without sound money, we are going to wind up like Zimbabwe.
Ballot measures are written with bias. They should simply state what they do:
"To provide additional funding for schools, should sales taxes be raise by 1%?"
Instead measures are written as if problems are real, and the measure will solve them:
"In order to repair badly decaying and dangerous schools, and to bring 21st century cutting edge technology into every classroom, and to provide excellent learning opportunities for all children, and to safeguard the health of all children with first class school lunch nutrition programs, thus saving billions in future health care costs, and benefiting the economy by creating a thriving and production workforce for future generations, should the sales tax be increased by 1%?"
The mental disconnect in these people is just mind-boggling.“
I don’t think it is as simple as that anymore. The rats have welded the door shut. Look at what happened in LA. They didn’t even allow a Republican to stay on the ballot. They have arrived at the “shoot your way out” of the axiom.
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