Posted on 06/10/2011 7:15:00 PM PDT by artichokegrower
Sacramento --
Counties, school districts and community colleges would have broad authority to seek taxes on income and products like cigarettes and alcohol under a bill approved by the California Senate this afternoon.
The bill gives local entities power over taxes that currently only the state Legislature can impose. The Senate passed the bill after Republicans, and a handful of Democrats, refused to support a measure sought by Gov. Jerry Brown to place taxes on a special election ballot. That measure needed a two-thirds majority vote from the Senate.
The special election measure would have asked voters this fall to extend and increase taxes through June 2016. But if voters rejected the measure, the taxes still would have been imposed for the remainder of 2011-2012 fiscal year, that ends in June 2012
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It’s been time to get the moving vans since 1995.
Second, do we really need new levels of government able to levy taxes? Really Democrats? "Game changer," Mr. Leno?
Local vehicle license fees? Seriously? County income taxes? Taxes imposed by school districts? They are well and truly insane. The power to tax is the power to destroy. In this case, it's the power to obliterate the state and local economies.
They think this will make businesses pressure Republicans to join Brown's scheme? No, it'll make businesses pack their bags in even greater numbers.
Kalifornia needs more taxes like a dead mule needs more fleas.
Brown hasn’t signed it. Yet.
Slightly unconstitutional. I hope someone is on this one and taking it to court if it gets pass the house.
“The population of California is going to fall...”
That’s what they keep saying, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. Let loose the felons!
Like the one I live in San mateo-I am very upset by this
“time to get the moving vans.”
Take a number and get in line ... to make a reservation.
here in Washington state you can not serve liquour at a public function such as a wedding,big party, etc unless its got a Washington State stamp....and Wash. State liqour is taxed mightily......we had access to cheap liquor in South Dakota but couldn't use it...
the state is always threatening to go after people that buy smokes across state lines at the casino....
they'll never stop....
BFLR
They failed to see the writing on the wall.
My response would be removed by moderator.
bump
I have been meaning to do study of how much tax I actually pay - my gut instinct is that it is about 60% of my income. But I have yet to research it.
There's going to be city taxes, AND there's going to be school district taxes, AND there's going to be Community College taxes, AND there's going to be county taxes, AND there's going to be state taxes, AND there's going to be Federal taxes, all growing at an uncontrolled rate as soon as a govt anywhere gets a yen to spend anything they want with no reasoning whatsoever.
Absolutely frickin incredibly insane.
Anyone living in CA deserves the future that's in store for them for not moving out of that den of idiocy when they had the chance.
How'd President Reagan put it? (to paraphrase) A tax is the nearest to immortality that anyone of us will ever get.
You know how schools report that they spend 6, 12, or 18 thousand dollars per student per year?
Oft-cited statistics, that somehow are supposed to reflect the communities commitment to education.
But - I found out that some things are not counted. Maintenance of the school grounds falls under the park service, the school bonds are treated as a city capital expense, the teacher retirement fund is under the city, not school, payroll...
My city spends $29,000 per kid per year.
How about in your town?
Where do you think they get that money?
OBTW, I did manage to find exactly one private school that costs more than a free puplic education - Madiera. $30k/yr.
It is a boarding school, and the $30k included room and board for your horse. And the kid.
My home office work dried up in Dec 2008. Since June 2009, I've been in San Diego at my own expense to stay on a contract. Higher cost of living and taxes all the way around compared to my home office. When I drive back on Monday, I'll be headed to a room I've rented for $450/month + 1/3 utilities. It is 6.7 miles from work. Between June 2009 and last week, I had been able to stay in the guest room at my mom's house in Rancho San Diego, but that took a 60 mile daily commute to get that deal. That's no longer an option.
BTW, the lab you had a chance to visit was at the tail end of my embedded systems work. My colleague died in January 2010. I finally packed up the lab at my home in Idaho last June.
I am sorry to hear that - both about your colleague and your lab.
I am no longer with the Firm - I am an independant. It pays well - when it pays.
California Senate rejects extending state taxes, votes to expand local tax power
Saturday, Jun. 11, 2011
Senate Republicans blocked a tax solution to the deficit Friday, prompting Democrats to respond with a countermeasure expanding local taxation powers.
Thus began Round 2 of the state budget battle, complete with readings of letters from sheriffs and taxpayers, parliamentary gamesmanship and failed amendments on abortion funding.
With a threat of lost pay hanging over their heads, lawmakers face a Wednesday constitutional deadline to balance the budget. The Senate made procedural progress Friday by passing a slew of budget alterations on a majority vote, but state leaders still lack a bipartisan agreement.
The key divide remains taxation. Democrats want to solve the remaining $9.6 billion deficit with extensions of higher sales and vehicle taxes, as well as a return to higher income tax rates that expired last year. Democrats asserted Friday that they had already taken hard votes by slashing universities and various programs for the poor in March.
“The public doesn’t like cuts and they don’t like taxes,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, DSacramento. “And as my budget director is fond of noting, I have yet to see a poll that results in a balanced budget. If there was a pain-free option to balancing the budget, we would have passed it months ago.”
Gov. Jerry Brown has pushed all year for a tax election after vowing he would not raise taxes without a public vote.
Republicans say they will not vote directly for taxes, though they have entertained the idea of allowing a tax election if Democrats agree on a long-term spending limit, pension cuts and regulation rollbacks.
Brown has met privately with select Republican lawmakers to hash out a deal along those lines. Sen. Tom Berryhill, R-Oakdale, sounded positive in a floor speech Friday. He said GOP lawmakers have crafted a potential compromise.
“We think we have that plan now,” Berryhill said. “We think that plan is much better than it was back in March. Whether or not we can get there in this next week and come to a consensus of how we’re going to get there and which way we are going to do that is yet to be (seen), but I think that if we keep talking ... that there is a pathway.”
A key sticking point remains whether to extend higher sales and vehicle taxes beyond June. Under a 2009 budget agreement, the state sales tax is slated to decline by one percentage point and the vehicle license fee by half a percentage point on July 1. Should that happen, it will be more difficult for lawmakers to reinstate those taxes.
Senate Democrats on Friday sought to extend those taxes for an entire year, as well as reinstate a smaller dependent tax credit and income tax surcharge. That would raise an estimated $8.1 billion.
“This allows our state to move forward, making the investments that our parents made for us,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills.
The proposal seemed to be a trial balloon, considering Brown has sought a legislative tax bridge half as long behind closed doors. The bill fell short of the two-thirds vote requirement as Republicans warned that imposing such taxes would harm the state’s economic recovery.
“If you extend these taxes, it’s going to mean more people out of work at a time when people can least afford it,” said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark. “If you vote for this, it will actually be a full year of tax increase even if in September the people vote this down.”
Once that failed, Steinberg brought his long-awaited local government taxation bill to the floor, Senate Bill 23 1X. Approved on party-line vote, it would give county supervisors and school officials the ability to ask voters to increase taxes on a variety of goods and services including income, sales, alcohol, cigarettes, medicinal marijuana and oil to fund local services.
The bill, originally contained in Senate Bill 653, has become a bargaining chip in the budget process as Democrats try to pressure Republicans into agreeing to general tax extensions. Businesses that back Republicans oppose targeted tax hikes and prefer general tax extensions.
“I believe that it is another club to use over Republicans and our constituencies, saying if you don’t do this bridge tax, if you don’t raise the taxes of people that have already said no, then we are going to have all these different taxes,” said Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar.
Democrats said they had the responsibility to allow communities to fund their public programs if Republicans refused to.
“I felt it was important to pass this early because it does show that if the minority party, which holds some of the cards here, does not provide bridge funding for schools and public safety agencies that the majority party will fulfill its responsibilities,” Steinberg said.
Earlier in the session, Democrats approved a variety of changes to the budget outline passed in March. They used additional school funding to roll back $200 million in child-care reductions. They also agreed to pay down $3 billion in K-12 deferrals, a plan that relies on the tax extensions that remain in limbo.
One Republican, Sen. Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, voted for that school legislation even though he rejected the tax bill.
The more the greedy govts suck up, the less there is for private industry to invest in their infrastructure and create jobs.
So then we have exactly the situation we have now. Private industry creates few jobs and govt creates no jobs and the economy stagnates and starts to die.
And this is just going to take more money out of the private pool and shift it over to the govt pool and NO jobs are going to be created by industry.
It's gonna be a loooooong depression. sigh
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