Californians should thank the rich

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 1/18/2002 | DANIEL WEINTRAUB

[dalereed]

Welcome to the

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA

From those acording to their ability, to those acording to their needs!

[Bryce Buchanan]

The wagon of government programs is pulled entirely by productive people. Power hungry scum like Gray Davis sit in the wagon and whip the most productive people relentlessly.

Davis is precisely like a villain from Atlas Shrugged.

[evolved_rage]

Yeah, but too many of these productive people in Kalifornia are inflicted with liberal white guilt. They feel bad that they succeed, and stick it to the minority of us who work hard and succeed.

[Dog Gone]

I saw this letter to the editor in the Chico (CA) Enterprise-Record on January 11.

Leaders no help in a crisis

Unbelievable. We're in a recession, and Democrats want to raise taxes. Was their public education completely wasted?

The governor just raised our sales tax by a quarter percent on Jan. 1. Now Don Perata, a Democrat from Oakland, wants to add an additional 1 percent onto the sales tax load we already bear.

Consider this: Our neighbor to the north, Oregon, has no sales tax whatsoever. None. Nada. Zero.

Besides that, Democrat Sen. John Burton wants to raise the state income tax to 11 percent in some cases. What a brilliant idea. Next will be the car registration fee.

Consider this, too: Our neighbor to the east, Nevada, has no state income tax whatsoever. Zip. Zilch. No forms to fill out, no matter what your income level. Neither does the state from which George Bush came, Texas. Or Florida, where George's brother is governor.

Wow. Those states must have worse roads than we do. (Oops, they don't.)

Oregon and Florida still manage to spend more on education per pupil than we do.

The reason, and the only reason, we have a staggering budget deficit is because Gray Davis is incompetent. He blew the entire budget surplus on energy, and borrowed more to waste.

Do you hear anyone complaining that natural gas and gasoline prices have dropped? It happened because the free-market system works. Only our electricity prices are frozen at an artificially high level, thanks to our blow-dried governor.

Our taxes are not too low. Our standards for politicians are.

- Barry Johnson, Chico

[NorCoGOP]

I'd love to see the wealthy, who would be willing, move out here to Colorado - we'd be very happy to have them, and since we are a mostly conservative state, more than likely we won't try the socialist approach of redistributing their income to the poor.

[Billy_bob_bob]

The obvious option is to do what I did, and leave. I now live in a ZERO income tax state, and I just could not be happier. Mr. Davis, find someone else to soak for your %10 income tax.

[Henrietta]

I live in Oregon which has a very high personal income tax. My husband and I (both high income earners) are considering a relocation to Nevada, where we are only taxed on what we consume, which isn't much. Taxing high-income people too much is really futile; we just move to another state where we aren't as penalized, and we take our wealth with us.

I've always wondered why rich people choose to live in Kalifornia when they could move to someplace lovely like Nevada or Wyoming and pay no state income tax.

[Dog Gone]

ping

[.38sw]

I'm still waiting for my Thank You note from Gray Davis. I have feeling i'll be waiting a long, long time.

[SierraWasp]

Our taxes are not too low. Our standards for politicians are."

Holy Toledo!!! Best quote I've seen in months!

That, and "blow-dried Governor!" Wooooooo Hooooooo!!!

Boy! You really DO scan our State's papers! Did you get this off www.rtumble.com? If not, what were you doing looking at Chico's little rag?

[BoilermakerCAengineerguy]

I've always wondered why rich people choose to live in Kalifornia when they could move to someplace lovely like Nevada or Wyoming...

The Pacific Ocean + Sunshine

I've lived in Boston, Detroit, Memphis, Indiana and Seattle, and I always used to swear that I'd never live in California. But now that I've been in San Diego for 2 1/2 years, I love it!!!

[Rev DMV]

It's the environment. This place is just wonderous, beaches, mountains, valleys. Such wonderful ecological diversity(sorry to use that bad word, but it fits here)

Trust me I've considered leaveing many times in recent years, but I've always decided to stay and fight it out.

Just to add. Yes I've lived elsewhere in the US. Plus I've traveled to every state, except Alaska.

[Dog Gone]

I used to live in that area, and I check out that paper occasionally. I would be inclined to move back someday, but not until taxes are lowered and the socialists are ejected from office.

Which may mean that I'll never move back....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the ping.

An interesting article from Chico. Seems like a lot of papers outside of the LA and SF metro areas understand what a mess Davis has made!

Thanks for posting the article.

I'll put this on the calpowercrisis since that is going to be such a huge part of the 2002 California Governors race.

To find all articles tagged or indexed using calpowercrisis

Click here: calpowercrisis

[.38sw]

...and furthermore, one of the scummy politicians (I simply can't remember which one right now) has proposed a "surtax" of another 1% of income for the "richest" Californians to help alleviate the budget shortfall. As far as I can see, my hubby and I would fall into that category. We're so rich, we still can't afford to buy a home! But hey, if those guys in Sacramento need our money more than we do, then who am I to object? < /sarcasm>

[Redcloak]

Welcome to California!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well this does it , we have got to have a list name for all of this good stuff that impacts on the 2002 election for california Governor .

Lets try this :

calgov2002

To find all articles tagged or indexed using calgov2002

Click here: calgov2002

[Dog Gone]

Good idea! This is going to be a fun election to watch.

[CdMGuy]

The IRS releases the Fed tax figures each year. If you have access to the Wall Street Journal, they were in a front page blurb earlier this week

As I recall, the top 1% of tax returns (Adjusted Gross Income line) paid 36% of personal income taxes. To be in the top 1%, Adjusted Gross Income needed to be around $160k (as I recall). Those in the top 1% made something like 21% of the total Adjusted Gross Income reported.

The article also addressed percentages paid by other income groups. The bottom half of all reporting pay nearly nothing. So, it is similar to California, but living in CA, I can tell you that the graduation scale is very steep. As you can see, in CA, the top 1/4 of 1% pay about the same as the top 1% for Federal.