The legislators in Sacramento appear to have no clue about how to fix our State Budget here in California. Beyond the budget however, it is apparent that these folks are also wrecking our state economy. Libertarian Assembly candidate Debbie Tharp has recorded a video to that effect, which you can see atop this post.
Tharp is running against GOP uber-social conservative Don Wagner, over in the 70th Assembly District. Democrat Melissa Fox is also in that race.
There is a huge debate going on right now between gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown, regarding our state’s economy. I don’t trust Whitman at all, given her lack of experience and lack of voting over her life. Brown’s ideas boil down to spending tax money on infrastructure improvements and green energy projects. No doubt Brown’s proposals would have a short term effect, but there is more that could be done right now.
We need to end the war on drugs. That disaster is filling our jails so fast that we are spending more on prisons than on higher education. We can take a step in this direction by voting for Prop. 19 this November, which will legalize and tax cannabis sales, in small amounts, to individuals.
We need to end the death penalty. We are losing millions every year on death penalty appeals. When was the last time our state actually executed someone? Let’s just get rid of it and jail these prisoners for life.
We need to reform Three Strikes. Only violent felonies should count as strikes. Again, we have only managed to over-fill our prisons as a result!
We need to put the state prison guards’ union back in their place. These guys are getting rich at our expense. That needs to stop. Politicians from both parties are beholden to this union. We can stop this as voters by NOT voting for any politician who accepts money from this union.
We need to legalize gambling. Why let so much money go to Las Vegas? Not only that, but Nevada has no state income tax and they are always going after our businesses as a result. No fair!
We need to reform public employee pensions. Cops and firemen should NOT be able to retire at fifty. That is ridiculous. And we should not allow politicians, like SAUSD Trustee Audrey Yamagata-Noji, to make hundreds of thousands per year in retirement at our expense, thanks to pension double-dipping. Yamagata-Noji will supposedly make as much as $300K per year when she finally retires, in a school district that serves the poorest families in Orange County.
And we need to CUT state taxes, not raise them. I wish my friends in the Democratic Party would figure this one out. Endlessly raising taxes is chasing business out of our state. We need to live within our means and stop running massive state budget deficits.
I have to laugh at the Democrat scheme to tax oil extraction. What oil? The oil in the Bakersfield area is high in sulfur and almost gone. We are not allowed to drill anymore offshore. So what oil are they talking about taxing? Very little oil is being extracted in our state, at this point. We are not going to resolve our state budget issues with gimmicky tax increases!
What I got out of that message is that we should get rid of regulation and work for nothing (or close to nothing) in order to woo business back. That according to the last line in the ad. “Cut the red tape” and “excess taxes” is so general and easy to say but she didn’t give any concrete examples except for enviromental issues which is at the top of the media list with cap and trade and easy to pull out. I remember stage 1 smog alerts when I was a kid , does anyone else or was I just imagining them?
There is a common sense solution to the deficit in plain view that would not require raising taxes! Just use more correctional contract facilities like some other States do! Less than 3% of California’s prison inmates are in contract beds compared to 13% in Texas and 16.5% in the Federal prison system. A contract bed saves $22,500 compared to a prison bed. If California had 16.5% of its inmates in contract facilities, over $500 million in operating costs would be saved annually and it wouldn’t be necessary to spend $6.5 billion for new prison construction.
It only takes about four months to establish a contract facility and costs nothing for construction. Inmates serving very short terms should be in contract facilities rather than expensive prison beds. In the past, such offenders were housed in county jails rather than prison beds. Now “wobblers” (offenders who can serve terms either in jail or prison) occupy almost 30,000 prison beds and technical parole violators occupy almost 19,000 beds. They are the reason for prison overcrowding and the decision to spend $6.5 billion for prison construction. It is an irrational to waste of billions to house such offenders in prison beds!
I agree with the message about the loss of California Jobs and how through excessive red tape we are actively chasing business away. I think regulation is important (up to an extent), but there the imbalance between taxpayers and tax receivers is out of control. We need less regulation to bring back local business. Just look at the 2010 survey of CEOs showing that California is THE worst state for business:
http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=0CC7FBE04E534C16922586F98AF9AEB3&nm=Articles&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=D89686F3721B4211AB39E53C70A39748
All these regulations are taking away jobs and driving our state into bankruptcy. California is the worst state in regards to tax method and tax burden.
http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/california-ranks-last-in-combination-measure-of-tax-burden-and-tax-structure
Also, California spends almost $500 billion on regulations, almost a third of the state’s gross state product. That is insane.
http://www.sba.ca.gov/Cost%20of%20Regulation%20Study%20-%20Final.pdf
In addition, some complain that we “have to work for nothing” to get our state economy back, but we are already working for nothing. Our government is devaluing our money through inflation and forcing business to waste it on regulations. Is it possible that if we didn’t spend so much on wasteful regulations that business would have more to spend on hiring employees.
I have to laugh at your “expertise” about our state’s oil industry, since we’re the THIRD largest in the nation! http://www.labusinessjournal.com/news/2010/aug/23/oil-drillers-look-plug-tax-talk/
Not to mention that you are apparently, completely unaware of the fact that part of the oil extraction tax proposal is to LOWER SALES TAXES according to revenues gained by the new extraction tax – something I would think you’d support. FYI: That means it would be “budget neutral,” and they designed it that way so a super majority wouldn’t be required to pass it. You see, the Republicans are dead set against it because they don’t want to loose ANY of the oily money they get to grease up their campaigns!
But please, don’t believe the bull about job losses. Typical fear-mongering from Big Oil; of which we will be served heaping helpings of in favor of the Orwellian-entitled, “California Jobs Initiative” (Prop 23) – thanks to the million$ that Big Oil has poured into it to propagate that falsehood. Thing is, the oil industry is one of the most heavily subsidized industries in the US (AKA corporate welfare queens at the taxpayers’ expense).
“Oil Companies Reap Billions From Subsidies”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?_r=2
Oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
So you see, this issue, just like every other issue before Americans today, is really just about getting our priorities properly in order. Will our financial priority remain that Big Oil receives massive amounts of our tax dollars, while they continue to make record-breaking profits? Or, do we want to make creating jobs in the vastly more sustainable and rapidly growing industry of alternative energy our financial priority? There’s the added benefit of energy independence (less money going to foreign countries for oil), but I think it’s the jobs that Americans are most interested in.
However, I couldn’t agree with you more about our desperate need to end the drug war that is completely bleeding our state dry! No doubt about it; you’re absolutely right about both parties taking money, and that the correctional peace officers union has been working like the mafia in Sacramento:
“Folsom Embodies California’s Prison Blues”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843426
This is by far, the biggest reason why I’m also behind Prop 19. Talk about having our priorities out of whack! Paying more for prisons than for education?!? That kind of lunacy must come to an abrupt end ASAP.
Heather,
I worked in the petrochem industry for several years. Go ahead and look into when we last opened a new refinery. It was decades ago.
The oil in Bakersfield is running dry. There is still a lot of oil off our coast but we cannot touch most of it.
There are grasshopper pumps still in the OC, but a lot less then we used to see.
All that aside, I am a big fan of green energy and green jobs. I really don’t care much about the oil tax but your media reports aside I am telling you there isn’t nearly as much oil being extracted in CA now as compared to twenty years ago.
The legislature needs to stop wasting money on the prison guard lobby and stop the end war. That will save more money than any of these nutty tax schemes.