Category: tax policy

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tax policy too much government

California Schemin’

Is California a failed state? It has an electric grid problem. And a vagrancy problem. Both of which stem from the bizarre ideological blind spots of a political class “benefiting” from the state’s high legislator/citizen ratio, which insulates politicians from feedback.

Driving them power mad.

And one form of madness flowers in political greed, hubris and overreach.

“A pack of Democratic lawmakers in California are proposing a wealth tax for the state’s richest citizens, forcing them to pay more essentially just for owning a lot of stuff,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason. “They also, amazingly, want the tax to follow Californians who flee the state in response, attempting to make them continue paying taxes on wealth that’s not even in the state.”

Rob Bonta, Oakland’s Democrat in the Assembly, says the Golden State needs more gold, and he has made a startling observation. Wait for it. “Rich people have money,” Shackford summarizes, and Bonta wants to take it. To expand services.

But surely service expansion is not only not the only option, it is often the worst option.

Take the state’s rolling blackouts. Was that caused by not enough or really bad legislation? President Trump points his finger at the Democratic-controlled Assembly: “In California, Democrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts — forcing Americans in the dark. Democrats are unable to keep up with energy demand,” the president tweeted on Tuesday. But the New York Post identifies as a cause not “intentionally implemented” blackouts, but “inadequate transmission and an over-reliance on renewable energy and issues with natural gas plants during high heat.”

Bad policy. Not too few “services.”

And the proposal to tax the richest Californians — or former Californians — to pay for more disastrous programs?

Hubris and greed.

Not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Extraordinarily Unusual

“It’s a government-on-government fight,” reports Seattle-based KOMO News, as the Pierce County Council voted 4-3 to provide assistance in defending Initiative 976 in court.

The ballot measure, which limits car license fees among other provisions, passed 53 to 47 percent statewide last month, including a whopping 66 percent affirmative vote in Pierce County. And — you guessed it — I-976 was immediately swarmed by life-devouring locusts — er, I mean, sued by “a handful of counties, cities, transportation agencies, and one transit rider.”

In short, many governments seek to undo a vote of the people . . . along with a lone citizen to serve as fig leaf.

Against only one government, Pierce County, now joining the voters.

Late last month, a judge in King County, one of only four counties (out of the state’s 39) to vote against I-976, issued a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the initiative, while the case is being adjudicated.

The voter-approved measure does have Attorney General Bob Ferguson lawyering on its behalf. But Mr. Ferguson has been engaged in a multi-year civil lawsuit against Tim Eyman, the sponsor of 976. The two aren’t friends. And the AG is no friend of lower taxes, either. No surprise, then, for Eyman to talk of “sabotage” and Ferguson’s mere pro forma defense: “he truly doesn’t want it to succeed.”

This isn’t a government-on-government fight, but governments-versus-voters. With the wonderful exception of Pierce County, where political representation still lives.

“This is the first time a government has ever actually done something to defend a citizen initiative,” remarked Eyman at a Tuesday news conference.

“It is really extraordinarily unusual,” he added.

That’s how out-of-control government in our “democracy” is.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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My Favorite Control Group

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 14, 2019
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Tim Eyman strikes again.

In deep blue Washington State, the ballot measure activist celebrated another Election Day victory last week with Initiative 976, limiting vehicle taxes. Not to mention Referendum 88, whereby voters kept a ban on government use of racial preferences, enacted via an initiative Eyman had co-authored two decades ago.

And still, there were a dozen more issues on last Tuesday’s statewide ballot thanks to Mr. Eyman’s 2007 initiative, I-960, which mandates “advisory votes on taxes enacted without voter approval.” (Also thanks to state legislators, I guess, for racking up 12 new tax increases this year without bothering to ask voters!)

Yet, perhaps it matters not at all. Nearly two million votes cast on each of these measures? Three supported by a majority? Nine rejected? Two esteemed Evergreen State newspaper columnists pooh-pooh them as “meaningless.”

“The Legislature has never taken the voters’ advice when they say a tax should be repealed,” writes Spokane Spokesman Review columnist Jim Camden.

That’s a failing of the Legislature, Jim,* not these advisory measures . . . which you seem to acknowledge when you write that these votes at least “provide a good control group for any experiment on the voters’ knee jerk reaction to higher taxes.”

If legislators cared to know.

While dumping on the dozen measures as “an empty remnant of an earlier initiative,” The Columbian’s Greg Jayne noti ces that “their presence on the ballot this year reminded voters, over and over again, of the Legislature’s spendthrift ways.”

Helping create an anti-tax mood that spurred support for I-976.

Not bad for being meaningless.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I use his first name because I know Mr. Camden from decades ago when he was a reporter covering House Speaker Tom Foley, who after suing to overturn the 1992 citizen initiative for term limits became the only Speaker defeated for reelection since the Civil War.

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Blue Colorado Big Spenders

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 7, 2019
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“The Trump years may have cemented Colorado’s blue-state status — time will tell,” writes Alex Burness in the Denver Post, “but voters in the Centennial State continue to hold a hard line on anything that has even a whiff [of] new tax.”

Burness is talking about Proposition CC, a measure placed on Tuesday’s ballot by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature, which would have allowed state government to keep and spend $37 million annually coming into government coffers over the state’s constitutional spending cap, rather than refunding those dollars to taxpayers as required by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights passed back in the 1990s.

The elite supporters of Proposition CC devoted more than $4 million to promoting the measure, outspending opponents better than two-to-one and arguing that government desperately needed the money for education and transportation. Opponents cried foul over the official ballot summary voters read, which began with the words “Without a tax increase . . .”

“But the measure lost,” Burness informs, “and it wasn’t close.”

“The measure’s failure amounts to a significant victory for supporters of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights,” Colorado Public Radio reports. “That constitutional amendment requires voter approval for all tax increases, sets a revenue limit for every government in the state and requires any surpluses be returned to taxpayers.”

“Who’s in charge?” TABOR author Douglas Bruce asked years ago. “We, the people, who earn the money, or the politicians who want to spend it?”

The answer from supposedly blue-leaning Colorado voters was unequivocal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Photo credit: Pictures of Money

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The Legislature That Couldn’t Tax Straight

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 19, 2019
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Tim Eyman, Senate Bill 5224, taxes, vote, democracy,

“If you lost count of how many new and higher taxes state lawmakers passed this year,” begins Jerry Cornfield’s recent column in the Everett Herald, “it was 12.”

Cornfield doesn’t appear too distressed about the tax hikes, however, worrying instead that Evergreen State voters will be “awash in tax advisory measures this fall.”

That’s because for every tax increase the Washington State Legislature enacts without putting it to a vote of the people of Washington, an advisory vote is mandated by Initiative 960, passed by voters back in 2007.

So 12 tax increases = 12 tax advisory votes.

“We wouldn’t be talking about advisory votes and providing Eyman a platform for politicial [sic] ministering,” Mr. Cornfield complains, “had Democratic lawmakers gotten rid of them by passing Senate Bill 5224.”

Seems odd somehow that a newspaper columnist would be berating politicians for not passing a law to silence voters regarding tax hikes. Democrats could have done so without a single Republican vote. SB-5224 did pass the Senate, but it was blocked in the House by the Democratic Speaker — “democratic,” thankfully, in more ways than one.

Eyman is Tim Eyman, the state’s anti-tax initiative leader. His group, Voters Want More Choices, spearheaded Initiative 960, which from 2008 to 2018 required 19 tax advisory votes. Voters have expressed opposition to 12 of the 19 tax increases passed by the legislature — 63 percent — and support for seven.

“It’s a tax increase report card,” explains Eyman, “and the Legislature this year gets an F.”

A grade that was certainly earned.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.