Originally Posted By EighthDwarf <<You were trying to say that CA was 10th in property tax dollars. But that's misleading; CA is only 17th as a percentage, which is pretty close to middle of the pack.>> I think measuring property tax by percentage is misleading because it is not a percentage of income, it is a percentage of proerty value, which as I illustrated is disproportionately high in California. And being in the top 1/3 isn't really in the middle of the pack anyway. <<Just because SPP said it, doesn't make it right. In fact it's absurd. The forecasted revenues for California in 2009-2010 are $98 Billion. The state budget in 2005-2006 was $91 Billion. Are you saying that we had no state employees in 2006??> No, and I'm not sure how those two paragraphs go together. You're not being clear.>> I guess I wasn't. In 2006 we had a budget of $80 Billion and managed to pay hundreds of thousands of state employees. Why would we have to fire every government employee to get back to that rate of spending again? That was my point. <<I'm not sure this shows what you think it shows. It shows 91B for 2005-2006, and $92B for 2008-2009.>> Hmm, I see something different. 2005-2006 $102 Billion in revenues and $92 Billion in expenditures ($10 Billion surplus) 2006-2007 $105 Billion in revenues and $101 Billion in expenditures ($4 Billion surplus) 2007-2008 $105 Billion in revenues and $103 Billion in expenditures ($2 Billion surplus) 2008-2009 $93 Billion in revenues (revised downward several times over the year) and $92 Billion in expenditures (revised downward as well). Original figures were $108 and $106 respectively. 2009-2010 $99 Billion in revenues (likely to be revised downward in the future) and $96 Billion in expenditures (likely to be revised downward as well, especially if ballot measures fail)
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<You were trying to say that CA was 10th in property tax dollars. But that's misleading; CA is only 17th as a percentage, which is pretty close to middle of the pack.>> <I think measuring property tax by percentage is misleading because it is not a percentage of income, it is a percentage of proerty value, which as I illustrated is disproportionately high in California. And being in the top 1/3 isn't really in the middle of the pack anyway.> 17 is technically in the middle 1/3 (only 50 states). It's closer to #25 than to #1. And we can argue statistics all day, but percentages are always better in cases like this than sheer dollar amounts, when dollars mean very different things in different states. <<No, and I'm not sure how those two paragraphs go together. You're not being clear.>> <I guess I wasn't. In 2006 we had a budget of $80 Billion and managed to pay hundreds of thousands of state employees. Why would we have to fire every government employee to get back to that rate of spending again? That was my point.> Obviously firing every state employee is neither possible nor desirable. It was brought up originally on another thread to note that closing the current budget gap without raising any taxes was not feasible, i.e. spending cuts alone would not do it. But at this point, I'm going to let you argue it out with SPP and/or other Californians. I'm not as familiar as I should be (NY's labyrinthine budget negotiations take enough of my energy) and I don't particularly have a horse in this race.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "It is absurd. Your numbers are way off. There are 310,000 teachers in California alone. The 239k figure you mention includes only state government, state university and judicial council employees. " Npe. This article explains it better than I can. You're assuming the teachers, for example, are able to be reached. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-cap16-2009feb16,0,1062359.column" target="_blank">http://www.latimes.com/news/co...9.column</a> At the risk of becoming Darkbeer: "Ardent anti-taxers say the governor and Legislature should simply whack the "bloated" bureaucracy by 10%. Even 20% if need be. Lay off and cut pay. Pare benefits too. After all, private companies are doing it. Well, you could fire every state worker under the governor's control and the savings wouldn't come close to balancing the budget. According to the state budget document, there is the equivalent of 205,000 full-time jobs controlled by the governor. There actually are more workers than that because some are part-time. Do the math based on 16 months, since that's now the time frame of the projected deficit, assuming a balanced-budget package could be implemented by March 1. You could lay off all those state workers -- rid yourself of their pay and benefits -- and save only $24.4 billion. Meanwhile, you would have dumped 160,000 convicted felons onto the streets because all the prisons were closed after the guards and wardens were fired. There'd be no Highway Patrol because all the officers were canned. State parks would be closed because there were no fee-collectors or rangers. Truth is the savings wouldn't even add up to $24.4 billion because some of those employees are paid out of small special funds that are self-sustaining. It's the big general fund that suffers the deficit. But let's say the books could be shuffled mysteriously and all that savings realized. You'd still need a lot more. OK, lose the Legislature, you say. It's good for nothing. But it's also not worth much when you're trying to fill that size deficit hole. The Legislature's 16-month cost is roughly $400 million. So now one branch of government is critically wounded, and another is dead. And we're still $16 billion short of enough savings. What many people don't realize is that around three-fourths of the state's general fund flows out to schools and local governments, much of it because of voter-passed laws. But there is another place to look for savings: You could cut off all state money to higher education -- the two university systems and the community colleges. That would save the remaining $16 billion. Don't like any of the above -- all those firings and slamming college doors on kids? Instead, you could eliminate virtually all state money for healthcare and social services -- grants for the aged, blind and disabled, assistance for the homebound, medical care for the poor, mental health treatment, welfare. . . . No exceptions. Of course, you'd then be turning away tons of money from Washington, which shares the costs. And you would be violating some federal laws. But there, it's done. You've avoided a tax increase. What a state! Hopefully, enough Republican lawmakers will courageously follow their leaders and do the math." So as the article gets at and I've been asking: if not taxes, what now? you can't just say "spend less" or "get back to certain psending levels" without saying how you'd do it.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf <<At the risk of becoming Darkbeer..>> LOL! <<So as the article gets at and I've been asking: if not taxes, what now? you can't just say "spend less" or "get back to certain psending levels" without saying how you'd do it.>> Sorry, but I think the article is sensationalist to say the least. The article makes it sound like everything we spend money on in California was added to the budget in the last 5 years. When we were spending $92 Billion a year in 2006, did we not have a lot of government employees, tons of social services, etc.? Again, as I stated above, the $42 Billion figure the article seems so focused on, is not a 1-year real number. It is a deficit covering 2 fiscal years and is based on bloated spending growth. I don't know enough about what the money is being spent so I can't comment on specific areas that should be cut. But I just can't believe we are unable to shave a few billion dollars off of spending. I live in Sacramento and know many state employees. The stories I hear from them are riddled with inefficiency and incompetency. But that's to be expected. Government jobs are generally safe jobs. And without fear of losing your job, people tend to have declining productivity. Honestly, I'm tired of producing to support the unproductive.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Government jobs are generally safe jobs. And without fear of losing your job, people tend to have declining productivity." Not anymore. Just using the city of Long Beach as an exmape, where my wife works, they're laying off an as yet undetermined amount of people due to the budget. Even though seniority says she'll never get laid off, my wife nonetheless is going to have to furlough two days a month. At the county level, where I am, the welfare department is losing 800 people. They refer cases to my department, which is mostly federally funded and generally unscathed, because we generate revenue. It's the same throughout the state.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Sorry, but I think the article is sensationalist to say the least. The article makes it sound like everything we spend money on in California was added to the budget in the last 5 years. When we were spending $92 Billion a year in 2006, did we not have a lot of government employees, tons of social services, etc.?" Sensionalist how? Facts are facts. I would also add one more thing. Are you paying the same for things now as you did in 2006? Neither is the state.
Originally Posted By velo This just in; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20bailout.html?_r=1&hp" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03...?_r=1&hp</a>
Originally Posted By mawnck From the link in 44 ... >>“This is not going to happen again,” Mr. Rangel said. “The light is flashing and letting them know that America won’t take it.”<< Yeah. Or else at the next Congressional hearing, we'll throw rotten eggs at you before we give you 700 billion dollars. Good grief.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn Middle-Classers' business plans are due. Let's see 'em. How many people are you going to hire between now and the end of the year?
Originally Posted By retlawfan With the new taxes from California and The federal Govt., I'm laying off employees rather than hire more....
Originally Posted By DVC_dad LOL! Nice topic X. The real issue is how "rich" is defined. But even so, if I were rich, which I don't think that I am, but if I were to be rich, I would gladly pay more taxes if it would have a genuine impact on the economy, sure.
Originally Posted By Mr X I think that, in this day and age, it's fair that the President set the definition of "rich" at $250,000 per year. Sure, it's arbitrary and some folks right on the edge of it will suffer...BUT, the line needs to be drawn SOMEWHERE and that number makes sense to me. If you make that much per year, you are pretty wealthy in the grand scheme of things. I don't think it's easy to argue otherwise (again, in the grand scheme of things). I feel sort of like a guy on the outside looking in regarding this "wealth" thing. I recently learned that in Japan, a typical CEO earns around $500,000 per year and the highest of the high make no more than $1 million. That is the cream of the crop. There is a much finer definition in Japan of what "wealthy" means. In Japan, "wealthy" means you own a second car, or PERHAPS a beach house. But the excesses of American style capitalism...they are considered rather grotesque here. I'm not sure if that matters all that much, but it has, I believe, given me some perspective. I'm forced to conclude that anyone SHOULD be able to make as much as they can, BUT they should NOT be able to fall back on public funding when they royally screw things up. Those folks deserve nothing, and should lose their jobs and go broke. That's my take. And if they're ("they" being a corporation) too big to fail, then they need to be seized by the government (it's a national security issue, after all!), and as such the employees should be put on a federally structured payroll. What's the top pay in government these days? No more than $400,000, I do believe.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad It seems to me that these bail outs are only going to perpetuate the problems in our ecenomy, especially with increases in taxes to small business owners. It all looks so complex and insurmountable. It's very hard not to get an attitude of worrying about only yourself. I don't blame the President for the AIG bonus thing, I'm not even sure I understand what happened, but everyone seems to agree AIG played the system for gain there, or their execs did. The problem I have with that is we ALL are going to have to pay for that. President Obama is trying his best, but there seems to be little if any sense of "team" in the whole ball of wax, political, private sector corps, or even individual tax layers-which not all of us ARE tax payers. I hope we all can realize it's not an easy fix, bury hatchets and work together for a REAL solution.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn "Rich" = when your money itself makes enough money on its own effort (interest, divends or sales on high stock prices) to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for one's self until death and/or beyond.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad I feel like the little boy at the sandlot who just wants to play baseball, but the "big kids" keep fighting over who's turn it is to bat. So... I just sit. I don't see this game getting started back for a while.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I think that, in this day and age, it's fair that the President set the definition of "rich" at $250,000 per year. Sure, it's arbitrary and some folks right on the edge of it will suffer<< Nobody will suffer. The looneyright would have you believe that as soon as you earn that 250,001st dollar, Uncle Sam will show up at your door demanding a truckload of additional income taxes. That's not how it works. The only money that would be taxed at the higher rate would be the dollar. Everything else is at the lower rate.
Originally Posted By Mr X Sure (I believe SuperDry mentioned that very fact here a while back..and never received a reply). I use "suffer" a little too liberally. Such people right on the fringes (perhaps those who earn $300,000 - $400,000 or so) might have to adjust their lifestyles slightly due to the higher tax rates.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh The problem is not that they'll adjust their lifestyles; the problem is they'll adjust their businesses. Why take a chance hiring and expanding so your income can go from $240K to $260K if most of the additional income will go to taxes? Why work extra hard to gain that extra income or bonus if most of it will go to taxes? And when they cut back, they don't hire, and they don't spend, and jobs don't get created. Then people do suffer.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Why take a chance hiring and expanding so your income can go from $240K to $260K if most of the additional income will go to taxes?*** 3% more is not "most". How ridiculous.
