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By Jon Coupal
It’s no secret that most Californians think that taxes are too high.
A PPIC poll released on April 15 of this year found that “record-high shares of Californians think that they pay more in taxes than they should and that the state and local tax system is not fair.” That feeling, according to PPIC, “. . . is in line with fiscal facts.” Our taxes are among the highest in every category except for property taxes, and even then, we are in the upper middle among states on per capita property tax collection. Only one thing keeps us from the misery of being at the top of that list: Proposition 13.
The assaults on taxpayers come from many quarters. Some of these attacks are high-profile ballot measures, some are trojan horse sneak attacks buried inside other ballot measures, some are cryptic attacks between the lines of court decisions, and some come from the lawmakers voters elect to represent them.
For this last category, voters can rarely rely on what a candidate says about protecting taxpayers. Very few politicians run on a platform of raising taxes unless it is about raising taxes on other people. (“The rich aren’t paying their fair share; oil companies need to pay more; no one who makes under $400,000 will pay more.” If lies were nickels, we could pay off the national debt.)
More likely, candidates will either obfuscate or outright lie about their tax increase intentions. Progressives particularly will claim to be defenders of the working class only to vote for sales taxes or parcel taxes, both of which are highly regressive. But lefties are not alone in their inability to keep promises about tax hikes. Who can forget the famous “read my lips” pledge from a Republican president?
To read the entire column, please click here.
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