Democrats are trying to fix California, not ruin it
Guest op-ed column
Posted: 11/17/2012
05:00:00 AM PST
POOR
TEA PARTIERS. The party is over. The tea is cold and the dregs are
bitter. Or are they? Maybe the tea has hallucinogenic properties, the
effects of which have not yet worn off.
At
least that's the impression left by one Tea Party Maven (TPM) in an oped of Nov. 14. No sooner had Jerry Brown's Proposition 30 passed,
ensuring the state would not fall off its own fiscal cliff, and
funding for education and other services would continue, than this person is
accusing the Democrats of "trying to ruin California."
The
people of the state just voted for a major fix to the budget problem,
proposed by Democrats, and that is the party attempting to bring the
state to its knees?
Yes,
says TPM, because taxes are going up, businesses will leave in
droves and the poor huddled middle classes will starve in the
streets. It's not just the fact that Proposition 30 passed; it's that
the Democrats have a 2/3 majority which may enable them to (gasp)
levy even more taxes on the beleaguered masses.
Look,
no one wants to pay higher taxes, and sales taxes are regressive, but
part of Proposition 30 was a progressive tax on the highest income
earners. Middle class families will not see their income taxes. Small
businesses, however, in the mind of TPM, will be forced to
leave the state, not only because of the tax increases, but because
of the onerous environmental and other regulations Democrats are
notorious for— hence the accusation of
wanting to ruin California.
It
all sounds very nice and like a plea for fairness, until you examine
the facts. California is a fertile place for small businesses to
thrive. Just visit the governor's Office of Business and Economic
Development (http://business.ca.gov/Home.aspx.) High
tech and clean energy jobs are booming. If anyone is being driven out
of business, it's mom and pop retailers, forced to close their doors
by the likes of corporate big box retail, who move into an area,
offer cheap foreign made products and low wage jobs. These small
businesses don't leave the state. They just leave, period. And I
don't hear TPM complaining about that. Why? Could it be
because corporate entities donate largely to Republican campaign
coffers?
Nor
does TPM tackle a major culprit in the loss of revenue for
schools and services over the past 40 years — Proposition 13, a
Republican-backed measure that insured gutting of our schools by
severely limiting the amount of revenue taken in through property
taxes. Instead, she blames Democrats because they have held both
houses of the Legislature for most of those same years. However, she
neglects to mention that this is the first time the Democrats held a
"supermajority" since 1933. A 2/3 vote is necessary to pass
any tax increase and until recently was needed to pass a budget at
all.
No, TPM, Democrats do not want to ruin California. They want
to save it, and according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's
Office, that's just what they'll do, turning a $1.9 billion deficit
into a projected $9 billion surplus by fiscal year 2017-2018. As
stated on their website: "Our projections show that there could
be an over $1 billion operating surplus in 2014—15, growing
thereafter to an over $9 billion surplus in 2017—18." http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2012/bud/fiscal-outlook/fiscal-outlook-2012.aspx
All
is not gloom and doom for the Golden State after all. And if we
tackle the inequities in Proposition 13, especially the ones favoring
the largest corporate abusers, the outlook could become all the more
rosy.
|
