Everyone has an idea of what the Initiative process is and which particular oxen there are to gore! We watch with amazement every election cycle and get a kick out of the fact that special interest groups love spending big money on some very dumb ideas. Others that actually make sense sometimes are drummed out by the rhetoric of “Big Money in Little China”.
This National Election on November 6th, 2012 appears to bring the citizens of California 11 Proposed Initiatives to choose from:
Proposition 30 – This is the baby of Governor Brown and has been put forward in the attempt to balance the California Budget after a terrible financial collapse of the Residential and Commercial Real Estate Markets which make the State of California the Golden Land. We say YES to Proposition 30 for two reasons: (1) It is a short term fix that only affects our richy rich brothers and sisters making $500,000 a year or more and (2) It is truly a referendum on Downtown Jerry Brown and the great job he has been doing – during these tough economic times.
Proposition 31 – Changes our State Budget to a 2 year cycle – which on the fact we disagree with. Someone gets elected and winds up out of office when the Budget they suggested comes to pass. Sounds a great deal like the Soviet 5-Year plans. We oppose Proposition 31 – truly in a philosophical sense, if nothing else. NO on Proposition 31!
Proposition 32 – Is a so-called attempt to limit Special Interest money. Whose special interest money are we talking here? Labor Unions and small Independent Organizations and perhaps even Churches. Who does it not limit – Big Business, Super Packs and the rest. Simply stated: NO on Proposition 32!
Proposition 33 – This is the so-called Good Driver Car Insurance Bill. We don’t know about you, but right now we have pretty affordable yearly car insurance in California – for everyone! So, this comes down to three old ladies in Encino who have never had even a parking ticket is 30 years and want to pay $30 dollars a year less. What this means is: Someone else has to make up for the lost $30 bucks from someone’s wallet that didn’t expect it. When it ain’t broke – Please don’t try and fix it! It is all smoke and mirrors and if the Insurance Companies are supporting it – something might smell fishy some place. NO on Proposition 33!
Proposition 34 – Repeal of the Death Penalty comes along every so many years, with the hope that someone is going to be mislead enough to buy the rhetoric of “over 100 people have died – that were innocent”. We won’t bother to mention all the terrible things or people that have and are on death row right now that have no redeeming social value to society and never will. We believe there are crimes so heinous and terrible that the people that do them need to die to serve as examples to others that think that Life in Prison would be a picnic compared to their present lives. NO on Proposition 34!
Proposition 35 – Increased Penalties for Human Trafficing – we agree with even if it just adds one day or $1 dollar to the penalties for such behavior. YES on Proposition 35 – YES!
Proposition 36 – Changes to the “Three Strikes” Law. Bill Jones created Three Strikes and in fact the reality is that it has been effective. Have there been several miscarriages of Justice along the way? The reality is that the original “Three Strikes Law” was a great idea, but left a few too many holes and wrinkles which got several people that perhaps did not deserve life in prison – Life in Prison. The “Three Strikes Law” was intended for violent criminals, folks that used force or brutality in the commission of a felony. Without express intent, many so-called “Hanging Judges” – (those that thought that the person before them needed to be put away with or without cause) sentenced many to Life in Prison including such crimes as a Stolen Car from a relative, Lindsay Lohan Shop Lifting and a variety of none brutal or violent crimes. Proposition 36 intends to right the ship and make sure only violent criminals get Life in Prison. YES on Proposition 36!
Proposition 37 – Genetically Modified Labeling. This is something that has been a long time coming. Knowing what we put into our bodies and the bodies of our children and family should be a no brainer idea. Big Chema, Big Argi and all the rest do not want the nations most populace state….knowing what is going on with their food supply. YES on Proposition 37! YES on Proposition 37! YES on Proposition 37!
Proposition 38 – Funding Schools has been a huge loser for several years. The results are that the kids get less and less – no after school programs, no outside activities, paying for sports programs, paying for any music programs…..and the list is endless. Meanwhile, school room size matters. Crowded school rooms do nothing to improve a quality education. Earmarking cash for programs that truly benefit students is the name of the tune. YES on Proposition 38!
Proposition 39 – Increases taxes on trans-national and global-national companies to fund clean energy. The opponents say that big companies will not want to come to California to create jobs. Sure! As if anyone believes that no one is trying to sell stuff to the Chinese either. After all, you sell stuff when two things reside: Money and People! Cleaner energy for California is not a sin. YES on Proposition 39!
Proposition 40 – Is a technical adjustment to State Senate lines and jurisdictions. This is something that the California Legislature needs to decide, certainly not a bunch of uninformed voters – that have little or no interest. We will probably vote YES or maybe NO…..depending on how we feel that day!
OK folks, these are life changing and altering choices for lots of people. They may not directly affect your life, but then again….they just might! We owe it to the many folks that will be affected by these laws and changes……to vote the best we can on everything.
Remember; These are “The CA Election Initiatives and the Independent Suggestions” that you won’t get on Slate Cards or in television ads before the election. You may or may not agree…but whatever you do…..please vote November 6th or before!
I see you’re still falling for the “tough on (only blue-collar) crime” pitch with 34 and 35. Greg’s piece on 35 back in July http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/07/i-despise-human-trafficking-but-i-oppose-the-badly-drafted-prop-35/ stills stands as the best analysis of it I’ve seen. There are people who work in the trenches against human trafficking who believe Prop 35 will harm their efforts. It’s simply a posturing piece for Chris Kelly. Of course it will pass, since hardly anyone reads beyond the title.
*Mudge – thanks for your comments. More knowledge is always better than less..that is for sure. The great thing about the California Initiative process is…..you vote for something this time and if it doesn’t work completely as you like…as the “Three Strikes” you can always go back and pass another version. Thanks again for your comments.
Yes, you can always go back, after raising a couple of million bucks to pay the signature-gathering industry.
Glad to see you come down on Prop. 32 – vote No is the correct recommendation. This is a blatant attempt by one group of special interestes to disarm another group of special interests and should be defeated.
Agree with all except your 34 and 35. Yes on 34, No on 35. You guys really SHOULD read Dr Diamond’s article that Mudge links to above. I don’t think you have, or you wouldn’t go with your kneejerk reaction that we all hate human trafficking.
Polls show things going the right way on most of these – except 32 is gonna be a REAL NAIL-BITER – could go either way. And 35 is hopeless – 3/4 of people think like the Winships, that they really really hate sex slavery … and how many people are going to hear Dr. Diamond’s arguments against?
*So are you guys saying that Voting YES on 35 is actually voting against protecting anyone from Human Slavery? Sounds to us more like a bunch of rich guys with live-in Mistresses from Guatamala and Ecuador……are afraid they will get busted when the truth comes out. Civil and Criminal charges……ya think?
Can you please read Greg’s piece? Hundreds of other people have, we think you can understand it too.
*We might call Dr. D’s well documented hog wash……exactly that. A couple of things to consider. Incest….ever heard of it.? How about trading the favors of an under age daughter to your buddies for some fast cash? The CASE Act with all it’s so-called flaws….is really nothing more than a variation of the Mann Act. That, as you know is for transporting a minor across a State line for illicit purposes……pretty gray……areas….if you are an 18 year old boy running off with the 15 year old next door Farmer’s daughter to go get married.
In any event, unconvincing is the word that comes to mind. NO, even if Lee Harvey Oswald was the author of the CASE Act……we would still vote YES on 35.
*OK, I won’t argue with you about it further. At least not tonight.
30 100% no , no no , the highest tax state in the union , needs more taxes , HELL NO ,, YES on 32 . calif is ruled by the public employee unions stop their stranglehold on this state . and maybe things will change since calif is in toliet due to these people .. no on 38 see 30
“Highest tax state in the union” — ain’t true. Look it up. Then look it up again using a credible source.
Grate One! Where did you hear that we are the “highest tax state in the union?” Is somebody actually telling you that?
Gr8er the Hater says no on 38 !
So if our schools suck, then don’t give them any more money ? That makes no sense. If the schools are overcrowded and the kids aren’t learning, then we to have more people to teach them.
How do you suggest we improve the schools? Close them?
HIGHEST PAID TEACHERS IN THE USA AND YOU NEED MORE $$$$ DEMOCRAP I DONT THINK SO , nice test scores too not one more cent
So if the military loses a battle would you cut the funding? No. You would throw more money and soldiers at the problem.
Your priorities are obvious.
democrap you went from teachers union to military just like a true far left lib this has nothing to do with cutting military , has to do with public employees your priorties are wacked out put down the dope ,, oh and as far as cutting the military thank your boy barry o for that
Poor gusano. What’s the matter, they don’t have metaphors in Cuba? Comparisons, parallels?
I know they do. It’s just your old constricted mind that can’t grasp what people are saying.
Devil in the details in defining the highest taxed state. One certainly could make the argument pretty easily that we are likely in the top few for income and sales tax which is what 30 raises whereas 38 is solely income tax. He may be wrong by saying the highest taxed state under certain circumstances, but hopefully you can at least see that CA is one of the highest taxed states in the union.
For 2012, if he were talking about just the continental US, I believe he would be correct on the individual income tax- the highest I believe go HI (11%), CA (10.3%), OR (9.9%). CA would be #2 behind HI…although CA gets to a 9.3% rate very quickly- after only $49K of income for a single filer whereas HI does not reach 9% until $150K of income.
On corporate income tax (i.e. C Corps), CA is likely in the top half with its 8.84% rate plus there is also the S Corp tax which is actually relatively rare in corporate tax at that level (i.e. 1.5%)….don’t even get started on the lack of ability to utilize NOL’s at both the individual and corporate side.
For sales tax, our CA state rate (exclusive of local/county add-on’s) is 7.25%…the highest in the nation, I believe. There are a few states at 7% (NT, RI, NJ, MS, IN). Sales tax is hard to compare due to the local add-ons to the rate both here in CA and the many thousand other jurisdictions.
We should be looking at total taxation, of course. That high income tax is there to counterbalance the budgetary bloodletting of Prop 13. Give us a property tax like you see in other states and the income tax and sales tax could decrease. Does this point really need to be stated explicitly?
Well, maybe you can point to the facts then…where does CA fall in taxation? I for one don’t believe it is the highest, but definitely top 10. The prop’s that TGO were pointing out (30/38) were based on income (30/38) and sales taxes (30), so I don’t think it is a stretch to discuss how CA is 2nd highest in state income tax rates for individuals and state sales tax rate since that is what we will be increasing.
I believe that based on a couple of studies that I have seen, the effective property tax rate for CA is in the middle of the pack (i.e. 27th-ish). Obviously, there are going to be some outliers with very old properties that have not transferred hands, but with high CA property tax values, one could probably pretty easily say that on a comparable property (i.e. based on characteristics not value) our property taxes are not all that out of line. I have to imagine that with property values overall dropping across the US, but a lot of Prop 13 values continuing to increase each year, that the CA property taxes are likely catching up just by the value environment.
So 2nd highest income tax rate, highest state sales tax rate, and middle of the pack property tax would lead a lot of us to say that CA is one of the highest overall taxed states (highest…well, that is debatable). Some of the overall studies would agree- often placing CA around 5, 6, 7-ish for the entire income/sales/property tax burden. I don’t think that these studies often include gas/cigs/alcohol/DMV/ which I am pretty sure that CA is not one of the lower states on those taxes either.
Are you familiar with the “split roll” property tax proposal? An unintended (by voters, at least) effect of Prop 13 is that long-term commercial lease properties continue to be covered even as more homes don’t.
Yes, I am familiar with the split roll concept and in certain cases I can certainly see the differentiation between primary residences and commercial property. I probably should try to find how much of our property tax is derived by commercial versus residential and even a more interesting figure would be the differential between FMV and Prop 13 values which would provide the shortfall of Prop 13. Hopefully, you would not be in favor of removing all Prop 13 protections…I know many older folks and those who are barely scraping by who would be so furious over that. Perhaps there are some figures available that you know…
Two other items (1 already asked and 1 new):
1. Already asked but not answered…can you provide where CA falls in taxation (or maybe by your silence you are simply agreeing with me…and just disagree that CA is the highest taxed state which means even 2nd highest is still appropriate).
2. New…if we were to increase property taxes as you imply (i.e. to maybe top 10 instead of middle of the pack), would you support a dollar for dollar reduction in sales/income taxes? It seemed like you implied this at your 9:41pm post…it would not change the overall tax revenue just the composition of it.
I think I saw us as #7 or 8 in Forbes when we last looked at this question. 247 wall st. com has us at #6 (behind New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Rhode Island) in “places where PEOPLE pay the highest percent of their income in taxes.” Apparently this excludes business taxes. As the authors point out, the reason some states have higher personal (income, sales, property) taxes, is
“some states generate a significant amount of their tax revenue from businesses and out-of-state residents, thereby minimizing the burden of taxes borne by residents. Alaska, for example, gets 80% of tax receipts from such sources. State residents get the equivalent of a subsidy from some of the world’s largest oil companies.”
Read more: States Where People Pay The Most (And Least) In Taxes – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2011/07/21/108558/#ixzz289v02dRs
I accept the rationale for continuing to extend Prop 13 protections to the elderly who depend on it — although the injustice of one set of rates applying to those elderly and another applying to those who bought homes (or became elderly) more recently is obvious.
I have seen numbers about this in the past but I don’t have time (or more fairly, inclination given available time) to research them. As I recall, our low property taxes dragged us down below 2nd; I want to say 10th or so.
I’d accept it in theory. It would provide a more stable tax base than income and sales taxes, after all. I think that in practice we need to increase revenue right now — in part to re-establish the school systems that have been a large part of our attractive environment to businesses and to natural persons.
Good discussion guys…however, I will go back to the original premise: TGO claimed that CA is the highest taxed state and it was stated in context of Prop 30/38 which deals with income and sales tax. CA is #1 on current state sales tax rates and #2 on individual income tax rates for 2012 behind HI (although we have what I would consider to be a quicker ascension to high rates).
I don’t think that we are that far off from #1, yes property taxes may bring us down a bit and level it off but still likely in the top 8…if one or both pass, we will be even higher in both categories that we already either lead or battling for the lead. I know that CA residents like to be leaders, but we have to ask ourselves whether we want to lead the nation in income tax rates and sales tax rates.
Yes, it would still make sense for our taxes to be higher, because by being a California domiciliary you get to … live in California! New York, the metro DC area, Connecticut and Massachusetts can also have higher taxes because those who pay them get to live somewhere that people want to live.
This is not an argument for high taxes for their own sake, but simply to point out that one would absolutely expect California’s tax burden to be greater than those of North Dakota, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
boutwell with this crowd in here if the facts dont come form mslsd the daily kooks and media matters than your facts are wrong . thank you any way
hey idiota, i quoted WALLST.COM.
gusano rojo vern
GD- Yeah, because if one lives Yreka, Baker, Bishop, El Centro, etc…they deserve to pay some of the highest taxes in the US to live in this great state.
That’s an unfortunate consequence of having to set income taxes at a statewide level (with some exceptions) — although local sales tax increases in places other than Yreka (like LA, OC, etc.) are factored into that big old tax burden of ours. If someone in Bishop would rather live in Vegas, they can — but they’re going to pay higher rent.
#1 California $116,695,284
#2 New York $67,945,152
Notice that California is almost twice as high as New York
Information comes from the US government, Census Bureau. Apr. 12, 2011
http://www2.census.gov/govs/statetax/11staxrank.pdf
Checking the numbers from 2005 and 2007, the numbers are smaller, but California is #1 according to the US Census Bureau in those reports too. I saw no reason to go back further in time.
Cook, just out of curiosity, let me ask you something. If I were to raise a methodological criticism of your describing California as the “highest tax state in the nation” based on the raw aggregate sum of taxes collected from taxpayers within the state, what do you that that criticism would be?
Well Greg,
With California having the highest population of the fifty states, and if you divide the tax burden over the large number of people (economies of scale).
The per capita tax of each Californian should be the lowest overall, but it is not.
There was no definition on what “highest Tax” meant. So I have chosen the highest tax collections as the meaning of “highest Tax”. As per the US Government.
(See your quote below)
“We should be looking at total taxation, of course.” Greg Diamond, Posted October 1, 2012 at 9:41 PM.
Would you agree that “Total Taxation” and “total taxes collected”? Means the same and therefore would be the same number?
I think one would measure taxation per capita (or maybe per adult, or maybe per employed adult, etc.) I see no reason to think that California’s per capita tax “should” be lowest of all. We can afford a better society than Mississippi can. It’s not immoral to choose to fund it — solely for business environment reasons, of course!
Per capita can’t be a valid measure either. With a progressive income tax, significant unemployment, and over (still) inflated property evaluations by county assessors . . . the term “most taxest” or “highest taxed” is meaningless.
It’s simply much more accurate to state that Californians are taxed more, on average, than your typical American. Probably much more. We also give much more to the federal government than we receive.
If you’re not happy with that, then it’s absolutely fair to say that our taxes aren’t the lowest in the country . . . and they aren’t in the middle either.
*What is all this nonsense about California being the 3rd Largest economy in the world? Have heard this for years……or the 13th….largest….who knows?
*We stand by all our selections……..in spite of the obfuscation and trans-actional analysis…..of all Wal-Mart and Costco products sold on the west coast.
It varies between 6th and 8th … sometimes above or below France. It’s not nonsense.
*Chairman Vern,
Well, if so…it would be interesting to see how 60 million Frenchmen collect and use their tax money compared to the 34 million Californians and how much we collect and what we use it for.
State National Products and the resultant tax revenues compared….how about that?\
*The powerful Special Interest Money is coming out hard and strong with lots of Pro Prop 32 and Negative Prop 37 ads.
Will be interesting to see how many folks get led astray.
Our position as formerly described: NO on 32 and very strong YES on 37