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By Jon Coupal
“No person’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session,” is a quote attributed to Mark Twain. For that reason, taxpayers breathed a sigh of relief when the legislature adjourned on August 31st of this year.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that legislators return this week and, at the direction of Governor Newsom, will conduct a “special session” to consider another tax hike even before the new legislature officially convenes in January.
For those who believe the concern over even higher taxes is nothing more than conservative hyperbole from “declinists” (Jerry Brown’s grumpy label for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association) consider the extent to which the legislature sought to increase taxes last year. California lawmakers considered almost $200 billion in new taxes, fees, and other exactions. These included various taxes to run a massive new single-payer health care program, a carbon tax, a “wealth tax,” and many more.
To emphasize the point made repeatedly in this column, California has the highest income tax rate, highest state sales tax rate and highest gas tax in America. And despite claims that Proposition 13 has decimated property tax revenue, California ranks high, 14th out of 50 states, in per capita property tax collections.
One must wonder with this endless litany of proposed tax hikes whether progressives have a fiscal death wish. What was once a huge surplus is now projected to be a $25 billion deficit.
A big problem with the California legislature is that fewer and fewer of its members have ever run a business. Their lack of sympathy for both individual taxpayers and businesses is reflected in various legislative scorecards, including the non-partisan Legislative Report Card issued by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, on which the majority of legislators received D’s or F’s based on their votes on critical legislation of interest to taxpayers.
To read the entire column, please click here.
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