Taxes: September 2008 Archives

After months of playing "chicken" the yearly California budget compromise ritual once again passes the buck to the next year.  Everyone breathes a sigh of relief that the "stalemate" is over.

But the problems aren't solved at all, they're worse.  Next year this will happen again but because of this year and previous years' so-called "solutions" it will be that much harder to agree on a budget.  So if you thought this year was bad...

Friday Dan Walters, in, Revised state budget is still a sham, wrote that the budget,

...remains a stopgap budget filled with accounting gimmicks and questionable "spending cuts" and "revenues" - and still leaves the state's fiscal house in great disorder. It makes little, if any, headway on closing what those in the Capitol call the "structural deficit" - the chronic gap between revenues and spending that was plaguing the state even before its economy went into the tank.

and wrote yesterday,

They violated every principle of fiscal responsibility by conjuring up billions of dollars in sham revenues -- basically money borrowed from corporate and personal taxpayers that would have to be paid back later -- to cover a huge deficit so they could blow town.

Senate President pro Tempore Don Perata (D-Oakland) said,

"I have agreed with the Governor to make some tweaks to the budget we sent him. I'm not proud of this budget - it just kicks the can down the road. But the reality is, Democrats agreed to nearly $10 billion in tough cuts while the Governor could not get a single Republican vote for the $5 billion in new revenue we need to close this gap and solve the problem."

That's right, once again a small minority was able to get their way by refusing to participate in normal, civil,, give-and-take negotiation.  They are able to do this because the public doesn't really know what is happening in Sacramento, only that no budget is passing.  So therefore it must be everyone's fault equally -- even if it isn't.
 

California's elected Republicans continue to block any and all efforts to pass a budget, because any honest budget must ask the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share. Even the Governor's extremely modest one cent sales tax increase was too much for them.

So let's talk about paying a fair share. David Sirota has a good column today at the Campaign for America's Future blog, The Aristocrats, Part II - Starring George Will. In the column Sirota writes about wealthy Republicans who complain when regular people get decent pay for performing services that benefit ... guess who ... wealthy Republicans. Sirota writes,

In a column about underfinanced municipal pension systems today, Will expresses deep anger that veteran police, firefighters and municipal workers eventually get paid well for their services. In one California town on San Francisco Bay, Will tells us that - gasp! - "after just five years, all police and firefighters are guaranteed lifetime health benefits." The horror.

Such salaries and benefits, of course, are part of a bargain: Enticing people to turn down the high-paying private-sector job and instead run into burning buildings (firefighters), do the dangerous work of apprehending criminals (police), disposing of sewage (garbage collectors) and administrating all the other services that conservatives pretend aren't necessary (municipal workers) requires, well, an enticement - namely, the promise that making such a public-minded choice will result in decent and stable pay and benefits.

When you accept a public sector job, that's the bargain: In exchange for being willing to do a tough job and accepting that you won't have the chance to make hundreds of millions dollars like a corporate CEO, you are rewarded with the chance - if you play by the rules - to make a pretty good living.

Yes, there is a BARGAIN at work here. We, the People have built a system that has been working pretty darn well for the rich. We built a system of roads, schools, courts, police departments and firefighters. We built up a system of laws. We work in the factories and offices.