Friday, April 12, 2019

Use By Date Approaching

Ran into this cartoon Tuesday and better use it before its "Use By" date gets here.


(Steven Breen)

Read those as Dr. Seuss prose, it works better. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a referenced story, but the list of ideas California's state legislature is contemplating was discussed in a few places as recently as last weekend, IIRC.

I did find a couple of interesting stories that illustrate the problem.  At Town Hall, Austin Hill writes about a proposal to implement a "third income tax" to pay for education.  The existing two are their California state income tax and the Federal Income tax. 
But now California, with an average statewide unemployment rate of over 12% (in some regions the rate is over 20%) and a budget deficit of somewhere between $10 and $15 billion, is considering the imposition of a third income tax. The additional income tax rate would vary, according to which region of the state one lives in, and would be imposed directly by school districts and county governments.
See, back in 1978, California voters passed a thing called "Proposition 13" which capped the amount that property tax could be raised year over year.  That means California school districts are broke just like the state.  They can't do what many other school districts in America do, and just raise property taxes by leaps and bounds every year.  Under the proposal, school districts will gain the right to decide on their own income tax levels to charge people living in their district. 

Do you find it surprising that they're getting legislative support for this idea?  If so, are you considering the government employee unions, long since joined at the hip with the Democrat party would like some of that sweet taxpayer money, too?

To add a little more context, Victor Davis Hansen, writing in the Daily Signal points out a couple of things to note.
For over six years, California has had a top marginal income tax rate of 13.3%, the highest in the nation.

About 150,000 households in a state of 40 million people now pay nearly half of the total annual state income tax.
That last one is astounding.  That means 0.375% of tax payers pay half of the state's income tax revenue.  No wonder ordinary Californians keep electing the people they do.  Everything they vote for comes with the fact that someone else is paying for it.  It's OPM - Other People's Money - the most addictive substance in the world.  In addition:
  • California recently raised gas taxes by 40% and now has the second-highest gas taxes in the United States.
  • The state has the ninth-highest combined state and local sales taxes in the country, but its state sales tax of 7.3% is America’s highest.  As of April 1st, that sales tax is applied to any purchases from out of state merchants.  
  • Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco, has introduced a bill that would create a new state estate tax. Wiener outlined a death tax of 40% on estates worth more than $3.5 million for single Californians or more than $7 million for married couples.  Since $3.5 million will essentially buy a cardboard box to live in in San Francisco, that will impact families who have passed a home down generation to generation.  The current owners will lose those houses.
  • In January, new governor Gavin Newsome proposed a tax on drinking water.  I'm sure that's an additional tax on water because I can't imagine people aren't already paying at least one tax on their water, if not several.   
It's no surprise that middle class Californians are moving out of the state.  I found it surprising that the rich are moving to California.  They're moving to the expensive cities and driving up housing prices which help force the lower income Californians out of state. 

I think California is working toward the Venezuela model of having a few rich people, mostly people living on handouts, and no middle class. 



15 comments:

  1. If Trump decides to send the illegals to sanctuary cities then Californians will need higher taxes to pay for the low/no skill grifters. And likely more pooper scoopers and vaccinations.

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  2. One of the main reasons we did a CALEXIT after the wife retired. We're just very fortunate that we had an area already scouted out.

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  3. "Socialism is a man standing in a bucket, trying to lift himself up by the handle." - Winston Churchill

    And still the communists in Excremento pull the handle harder, and cannot fathom why it still isn't working.

    Maybe when everyone here is out of work, and the unemployed are all trying to ride in the government dole wagon, it'll dawn on them why nothing's moving.

    The bottom line is the state will run out of money long before they've taxed everything, and the crash here is going to be YUUUUUUUUUUUGE.
    Unlike Uncle, the state can't money-print its way out of this, and the bonds are already tanking, so the state's credit card is maxxed out.

    That's what I'm hanging around for: when this happened in Russia, they dumped the commies, and pulled the statues of Lenin down.

    Same thing's gonna happen here, and best of all, Julio y Maria and their 37 relatives will be moving to the states whose representatives from the Republicratic Uniparty didn't notice there was an illegal immigration problem for 40 years, followed closely by all the toothless, banjo-playing kinfolk from the Other 47 contiguous states moving back home for greener pastures. Nota bene they weren't Californians when they moved here, so they won't be when they come back to everywhere else either.

    Brace for impact, buckoes. Everyone's chickens are coming home to roost.

    There's a bare chance the suddenly-dispossessed start rioting and looting here, and I get to thin the herd kinetically, at both top and bottom.Even if not, it's a day I've been waiting upon for years, and it cannot come soon enough.

    But Califrutopia will not be on he Venezuelan model: communists cannot work their mojo when half the state is armed to the point that they could take on Venezuela, and win. Thus long before we're eating zoo animals, politicians will be an endangered species best described as "long pork", and the best use of the browned out light posts will be as ad hoc scaffolds for the display of their rotting carcasses.

    Anyone wants to make money here, start west now, and bring a truckload of spools of stout rope.

    Bonus: Five minutes after the changing of the guard, we re-open drilling offshore, and put North Dakota shale fields to shame.

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  4. Aesop,
    what are the chances that the "house cleaning", kinetic or otherwise, that results from the crash, will spread to other states?

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    1. Seeing as I am in the belly of the beast, I'll answer - 100%.

      CalPERS, the public employee retirement fund, is the world's largest hedge fund. It is also the most unfunded, $500 Billion, maybe as high as $750 Billion...I stopped paying close attention about five years ago. CA state being down rated to junk status won't effect other states as much as the avalanche of suddenly new dependents on those states where ex-CA peeps have fled to, now that their CalPERS pensions went ker-plunk. The exodus from CA hasn't peaked yet - not even close - but once making steam it will bury the other states.

      Buy ammo, select your targets, be patient.

      Rick

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    2. Which is to say that drastic measures will be taken to staunch the bleeding.

      Rick

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  5. Just last week I read a commentary from the Howard Jarvis group that CA state has a $21Billion surplus. The context was that surplus did not stop the state from implementing new taxes.

    Also, there is already so much damn money flowing into education. The problem is the creation of new administrative positions and increasing pay rates for those bureaucrats who do nothing to educate students.

    The current push against Prop 13 isn't the first, it is only the latest; attempts have been regularly made since 1978. I fear that the bifurcation of business from residence is the opening salvo in finally abolishing Prop 13 protections.

    'First they came for the business' but I said nothing because I don't run a business. Then they came for the homeowners but I said nothing because I am a renter....'.

    I foresee two events which will be the last straw for so many CA residents; abolishment or neutering of Prop 13 and implementation of an 'exit' tax of those leaving the state.

    Rick

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    Replies
    1. And don't forget the lottery money "for the children", which is now mostly diverted to the General Fund.

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    2. Yeah, when the people voted for that I shook my head. It was idiocy on display. Are the people really that gullible? Yes, yes they are. Why, they even keep voting for bond measures to pay off previous bonds.

      Rick

      Rick

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  6. When California fails financially, they will DEMAND that the Federal government bail them out. They expect the "flyover states" to pay for their foolhardy excesses.

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    Replies
    1. They don't "expect" it, but they will ask.

      And will be told, in no uncertain terms, to take a flying f**k at a rolling doughnut.

      And then, the EBT cards go dark, and the fun really begins in earnest.

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  7. Great bunch of comments here - keep 'em coming.

    Unknown - you've dropped info I'm not familiar with.

    BillB - one of the things Cali (and NY, IL, and more) is screaming about now is that up until Trump's tax cuts, flyover country was already subsidizing California because state income tax was deductible. That deduction got capped this year and people in high income tax states pay more total tax - they don't deduct the state tax from their income for federal taxes.

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  8. We GTFO in 1992 when we moved to WA. Now the Dems have made WA a uniparty state, and we're back where we started. Now we are too old to put the effort into relocating which would involve finding suitable medical care. A pox on the Democrats.
    _revjen45

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  9. My small retirement from CalPERS (10.5 years working at CHP) will be missed when it goes, but it won't sink me. So far it is still coming in. I quit at CHP in 1995, traveled the country for a while, then ended up in OR, working at a VAMC. Saw the writing on the wall there, quit at the VA (another small amount) in 2008, traveled coast to coast a couple of times. Tried Wyoming for a year, but couldn't afford the real estate there. With close to full employment (mining, gas and oil, and a lot of land in the Rez), prices were too high for my blood. Settled in the mountains of SW Montana six years ago, and I believe we are here to stay. Currently no sales tax (like OR, NH, DE and AK), property still affordable (but not cheap), and pretty good gun laws. No CCW needed anywhere outside of the towns and cities, and when we get rid of our damned Dem governor "Bullock" (same as a steer), we might go Constitutional.

    If anyone is going to move here, we'd prefer Second Amendment folks, not more liberals.

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  10. Well, I see the list doesn't include "thingy" yet... but I'm sure they'll get to it sooner or later.

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