(California) Governor defends tax vote, blasts opponents

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(02-24) 13:08 PST SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown defended his budget plan and pressed GOP lawmakers to allow voters to weigh in on tax extensions and increases during a highly unusual appearance before the Legislature's budget conference committee on Thursday.

In a lively, hour-long appearance, the Democrat criticized the 30 Republican lawmakers who announced a new "taxpayers caucus" Wednesday aimed at opposing Brown's plan to put $14 billion in tax increases before voters in June. The governor proposed the tax extensions and increases, as well as deep cuts to state programs, in order to close the state's $26.6 billion budget shortfall.

"Pledges are interesting, they make good theater," Brown said. "But the fact is we have to have a plan, we need a solution, and for those who say they don't want to vote, then why are you here? And if you're going to be here, give us some ideas."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/24/BA6R1HU209.DTL

[dd2003]

1. more taxes in taxifornia

This is the one issue I always feel may lead people to voting republican in CA.

[rpannier]

2. Your solution would be???

Given that the former Governor already showed that if he cut all state spending (police, fire, teachers, medical, etc) the state would still be in the red.

BTW: Taxifornia. Did you make that up yourself? Cuz I've heard many republicans use that term.

[dhill926]

4. uhhhhhh.....yep......

republicans use that term...it's stupid.....

[last_texas_dem]

25. Yeah, Taxifornia = kinda weak.

Taxachusetts at least has that almost-internal-rhyme-if-we-allow-for-some-creative-license thing goin'.

[Kablooie]

3. Taxes to pay for services provided? I'd vote to raise them.

As long as it is across the board. The selfish rich have to pull their share of the load too, of course.

[provis99]

5. Taxifornia? California is only 11th among states in taxation.

Your Republican Alaska is highest in state taxation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels

[No Elephants]

11. Trying to confuse us by posting facts?

[DBoon]

20. facts have a notorious liberal bias

soundbites from AM radio talk shows are much more "truthy"

[Bandit]

14. Alaska has no State income tax nor a state sales tax

The taxes you are referring to are on the oil industry and they are no where near as high as the taxes placed on the oil industry in the Gulf states.

[DBoon]

21. California has no taxes on oil

it is the only major oil producing state to not tax oil extraction

Maybe Alaksa is doing something right here?

You may want to also note the tax benefits of prop 13 to large corporate land holdings. Prop 13 makes no distinction between homeowners and corporate real estate. Long term corporate land owners have made out like bandits in low taxes.

[Jennicut]

16. Yeah, really. I live in Connecticut and we are #6.

Cry me a river. I am really used to paying for what we get. Rather live in CT then some crappy southern low tax state with education levels in the toilet.

[musette_sf]

6. Having lived in the Norquistian paradise of Texas

and in California, all I can say is, you get what you pay for. I regret not a cent I pay of California taxes, and there isn't enough money that could make me move back to Texas.

[fittosurvive]

17. Nevertheless, the Texas economy is doing quite well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Texas

[bemildred]

18. Doing quite well for some, not so well for the rest. nt

[DBoon]

22. Texas has the highest percent without health insurance

and many other measures of human well being are shockingly low for most of the population

And now Texas has a California-sized budget deficit - with no unions to blame for it.

Texas lags far behind California in major research universities, patents produced, high-tech infrastructure and venture capital investment, according to the Missouri-based Kauffman Foundation. The foundation's 2010 ranking of states in "movement toward a global, innovation-based new economy" put California at No. 7. Texas was No. 18.

"Their model is a low-wage economy with greater income inequality," said John Ellwood, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. "For all the talk of Texas being a high-tech state, they have never really caught up to California.… Look at the big new growth companies. Where is Facebook? Where is Google? Are any of these companies in Austin? No."

Even Perry's claims of companies that have decamped from California to lay down roots in Texas appear to be overblown. When the Austin American-Statesman looked into the Texas governor's boast that there were 153 such companies in 2010, reporters found the claim included California firms that stayed put but maybe opened a Texas branch. The newspaper concluded that Perry's figure was grossly inflated.

from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-texas-budget-20110207,0,4154023.story

[bemildred]

24. Texas is all about money, about sucking up to people with money.

Yeah, I liked that piece you posted too.

[musette_sf]

29. Um, not.

http://www.texasobserver.org/forrestforthetrees/krugman-gets-it-right-on-texas-budget-crisis

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/02/how-texas-conservatives-are-manipulating-a-budget-crisis-of-their-own-creation.html

http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/20/right-wing-economics-in-action-texas-budget-crisis-could-cost-the-state-100000-jobs/

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7446674.html

And how about those rolling blackouts?

[Ken Burch]

7. The only alternative is cutting social services so much that they don't cover anyone anymore

And reducing environmental and labor regulations to nothing.

What's the point of defeating republicans and then governing LIKE them(which is what sticking to a "no new taxes" position would have to mean)?

One party of the right is enough. There's no way to make "small government" progressive.

[BlueMTexpat]

8. Looks as if you've outed yourself already. nt

[No Elephants]

10. S/he registered in September 2008, so it wasn't all that fast after all.

[No Elephants]

9. Taxes were part of Reagan's version of the Southern strategy.

This is from an anonymous interview given by Lee Atwater to political Scientist Alexander P. Lamis in 1981, during the Reagan administration. Lamis identified Atwater in his book, The Two-Party South, when the book was reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s.


"Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*gger, n*gger, n*gger." By 1968 you can't say "n*gger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rightsand all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*gger, n*gger."<6><7>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater


Good ole, jovial Dutch Reagan, everyone's favorite President, eh?




Atwater was a member of Ronnie's admin. He was deputy director of Reagan's second campaign and headed Poppy Bush's first campaign, during which he and Dummya became good friends. Then, he headed the RNC until he died at age 40. Atwater had also managed Karl Rove's campaign for the national chairman of the College Republicans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove

IOW, we were under the influence of this turd for 5 Presidential terms.

*(Wiki spells out the n word. I put in askerisks.)

[Le Taz Hot]

12. "Taxifornia?"

Really???? :eyes:

[delunapark]

13. Amazing............Taxafornia

n/t

[DBoon]

23. Homes in my neighborhood sell for $800,000

my property taxes are lower than my in-laws' home in Indiana, worth maybe $150,000

What's this about high taxes?

[bemildred]

26. Yep, without going into particulars, my net property tax rate is .67%.

Including everything, per year. Just makes your blood curdle thinking about it.

[DBoon]

27. Just think of the deal the Kern County Land Company gets for its farmland in the central valley

or, I'd love to see what Universal pays in property taxes on its corporate compound here in LA.

[shanti]

31. or all of the foreign owned office buildings

in LA. if prop 13 was limited to non investment residential properties, you could just imagine the bucks that would be pouring in.

[slackmaster]

30. It's based on what you actually paid, rather than some abstraction of present market value

The state balances out controlled property taxes by having very high sales tax (highly regressive, yes) and high, very progressive income tax.

[bemildred]

32. It is a very thorny problem, but the current system is a failure.

I think it might be a good idea to start over.

[DBoon]

19. Yeah right

I'm sure taxing oil and gas extraction will massively shift the electoral landscape.

You do know California is the only major oil producing state to not tax? Texas, Alaska ("permanent fund"?), Oklahoma, all levy taxes. CA doesn't

Or maybe reversing the billions of dollars in large corporate tax cuts the Republicans forced as their concession for passing a budget?

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

33. Portmanteau of "Tax" and name of blue state => no need to say anything else. -nt

[bemildred]

15. Attaboy Jerry, hammer and tongs, don't let the whiners slide.

"But the fact is we have to have a plan, we need a solution, and for those who say they don't want to vote, then why are you here? And if you're going to be here, give us some ideas."