A Look At State Expenses
Interesting look at the state deficit in the L.A. Times. The author claims,
"California could fire every state employee -- including well-paid prison guards and university professors -- close every government office, stop all travel and even cease the purchase of paper clips without closing the budget gap. The government would be gone but the deficit wouldn't."
Unbelievable, except he doesn't say how big the deficit would be after getting rid of state government.
Of course, one of his recommendations for fixing the budget is getting rid of the 2/3 majority requirement to raise taxes. Seems to me that if you could basically dissolve government in this state and still have a deficit, increasing taxes wouldn't work.
What I'd like to know, and I don't know that I've seen it mentioned anywhere, is how much the sales tax- or any other tax for that matter- would need to be raised to eliminate the current deficit? And I suspect that, even without a government, the deficit might still increase as it always has over the last decade or two. We'll need even more taxes after that.
How much are you willing to pay?
Labels: California State Government
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:35 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
California has about 10 million households. A third probably could not afford any tax increases. So that leaves 7 million households to find $25 billion. A billion is a thousand million, so divide 25,000 by 7. That's about $3600 per year per household, right? $300 a month. Ten bucks a day per household. That's about what it will take.
Or you could just restore the corporate and banking tax rates gutted by Pete Wilson and Grey Davis (that's right Greg, Repubs and Dems alike pander to these bankster thieves), that'll scare up $12 billion.
The other half of the money? Set all the non-violent offenders out of prison and onto parole or probation, and cut the bloated wages and pensions of the prison guards by a third.
Well, according to the writer of that commentary, you could get rid of all the state employees and still have a deficit.
Raise taxes on families earning $250,000 and above. A one-time surcharge of 50 percent of their income. That will erase the deficit and restore the social safety net, such as Denti-Cal benefits for adults on Medi-Cal. And there'd be enough left over for a tidy surplus to see us through the next recession.
Well said , Fred . Your very smart and the way you write things make you look really pretty intelligent .
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