The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is getting a bum rap.
The organization is named after fiery tax-cut advocate Howard Jarvis. Jarvis authored Proposition 13, the California tax limitation measure approved in 1978 by a two-to-one margin.
In recent months, like everywhere else, California has suffered economically. And now the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is being angrily berated, for nevertheless still advocating lower taxes for besieged taxpayers.
The Sacramento Bee declares that there’s a “difference between protecting taxpayers and rigidly opposing all new tax increases, regardless of the state’s finances.” Watchdogs who commit the latter become “demagogues,” according to the editorial writers at the Bee. The Howard Jarvis folks are supposedly “charting a course to disaster.”
Oh, I don’t think so. I’m happy when foes of ever-larger tax burdens stick to their guns.
The Bee blithely ignores the true culprit here, asserting that in recent years, tax revenues have “plunged” in California as “deficits have deepened.”
Recent tax receipts are down slightly compared to a year ago. But for years, state government spending has skyrocketed, which the Bee says nothing about. The state budget was $56 billion in 1998. In 2008, $131 billion.
Here’s a suggestion, one the late Howard Jarvis would have liked. Cut spending.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
8 replies on “Howard Jarvis Must Be Growling In His Grave”
It is obvious that the Constitution has become void where ever prohibited my law; “and special interest judges”..
The “Stimulus” has become the “cause we should care about” and if you are against it you a a demagogue. Well here is the truth.
One billion is one thousand million or 1 followed by 9 zeros. (1,000,000,000). If you spent one million every day it would last you almost 3 years.
One trillion is one thousand billion or 1 followed by 12 zeros. (1,000,000,000,000). If you spent one million every day it would last you almost three thousand years. If you increase your spending to 100 million every day it would still take almost 30 years to spend it all.
The total price for the bailouts is by some estimates going to be up to 3 trillion dollars. Divide this huge sum by the roughly 300 million men, women, and children living in the US and it comes to $10,000+ each. Get ready to dig deep.
Well, the true solutionto this problem is to fire the thieves sent to various capitols throughout the US and keep firing them until you finally get some honest ones in there, then we could finally use the word “honorable” in front of their names without wincing.
Anyone who thinks the words “reduce spending” resides in most thieves – uh – I mean politicians, sorry, vocabulary is living in a dreamworld. Look at the liberal Sens from Maine as an example-their idea of reducing spending is to cut some 90 gigabucks off the bill that hasn’t even come to the floor yet-that’s a reduction? Still sounds like a lie to justify more spending to me.
Hank
Taxes. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
Spending. Is the cost fair for products and/or services purchased buy the government? All to often NO!
But what do we do?
Bailout? What a joke. More like rape The United States of America.
This whole thing is going to implode.
Bureaucracies live unto themselves. They are alive and only grow. No one man or political party can stop them. Actually I do not think they can be stopped. I have NEVER heard of one being stopped in all of history. The United States is being propelled deeper and deeper into bureauracy. Laws and regulations are being made every day trying to countermaned other laws and regulations that are being abused.
It is NOT so much taxes as it is bureauracy that is destroying this country. That and the cheats and crooks who using the system to line their own pockets. A deadly duo.
Good Luck.
Sincerely,
Timothy James Maki
So long as we have those who can easily demagogue any who oppose or suggest alternatives to plans to simply throwing money at issues, we will be stuck w/ out of control spending.
Republicans lost their way when they had a small majority, spent as though the public had an unending stash of cash, & they lost that majority.
Republicans were punished for not living up to their promises. Now we have Democrats who campaigned on “hope & change.” Apparently many think Democrats can do what they promised & still not spend big money doing so.
The truth is our politicians try to use guilt to embarrass us into spending money. Add special interest groups whose only purpose is their agenda & they ignore how getting what they want will affect everything else, & we have crisis.
Under the let me spend w/ no limit philosophy, if any object, they are mean, nasty, & uncaring about suffering of the less fortunate.
Long term uncontrolled spending is bankruptcy, which will do harm to everyone, not just the less fortunate.
In fact, by not limiting spending, all we will have done is make everyone less fortunate.
Great idea! Yeah, right!
We need to put a stop to media choosing sides & then using their bully pulpit to destroy & make villains of any who view issues differently. The fact that I see how to deal w/ a problem differently, that does not make me mean, nasty, or uncaring. It just means I solve the problems using different methods. Educators supposedly encourage “out of the box” thinking, yet partisans make such thoughts out to be evil.
Jarvis saved California taxpayers a great deal of money over the years. The problem is, the legislature failed to stop spending. They did not raise taxes, they just ignored the fact there was not enough money coming in to cover the spending they were doing. And now, partisans take that irresponsibility & try to portray saving taxpayers out to be some sort of evil plan to destroy every Californian.
Yeah, Jarvis worked up a plan to destroy fellow state residents because.…. because.…. because.
well, because!
Makes sense, huh?
We also need politicians who “hold the line on spending” & who stop making promises w/ everyone else’s money!
What a concept, huh?
I live in California. Our state has received a huge amount of money over the past 10 years from property taxes. Many people have been living in homes way beyond their means and the taxes have been
a huge windfall for the state. Now that those munti-million dollar homes are being forclosed, and many others that were selling for over $500000 that were only 1000
square feet,now the state is hurting.
California discouraged the legislature from saving for a “rainy day” and went on a spending spree. Now they are “paying the Piper”. It would be hard to feel sorry for them except it is hurting so many people.
Saying Nothing About Cutting Spending…
They’re blaming Howard Jarvis (Prop. 13) for their money woes in California. They bemoan the fact that it is more difficult to raise taxes and say it’s his fault. But they say nothing about rising spending on the part of the state.…..
Didn’t Mr. Jefferson say something about “that government is best which governs least”? The real problem is that the citizenry of California and too many states want something for nothing, and the career politicians are only too happy to oblige. Our political class needs to use Cincinnatus, Washington’s ideal, as a model for public service and not become doddering old fools such as Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond.