{"id":9112,"date":"2009-06-12T20:34:25","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T20:34:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-06-12T20:34:25","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T20:34:25","slug":"ideas-on-the-budget-rain-down-upon-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/06\/12\/ideas-on-the-budget-rain-down-upon-sacramento\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideas On The Budget Rain Down Upon Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suggestions on the budget crisis are coming in from just about every possible source.  Right-wingers across the spectrum are calling for their favorite cuts.  It’s like an all you can eat buffet of cuts to Nortquistian-government slashers.<\/p>\n

But over on the progressive side, a slew of reasonable plans are emerging from a variety of organizations. The California Tax Reform Association has a detailed list of suggestions<\/a> that include a litany of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the tax code, improving collections of existing taxes, and adding a few taxes that are broadly supported.  The entire report is just a few pages, but provides a very good guide on how we proceed. Many of these suggestions are majority vote, so the question is once again Arnold’s willingness to bend to reality.<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Idea<\/TD>
\n 		Support<\/TD>
\n 		Oppose<\/TD>
\n 		D\/K<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut Police<\/TD>
\n 		23<\/TD>
\n 		74<\/TD>
\n 		3<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut K-12<\/TD>
\n 		25<\/TD>
\n 		73<\/TD>
\n 		2<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut Health Care for the poor<\/TD>
\n 		26<\/TD>
\n 		72<\/TD>
\n 		2<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Increase Tobacco Tax<\/TD>
\n 		75<\/TD>
\n 		N\/a<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Increase Millionaire’s Tax<\/TD>
\n 		74<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Oil Severance Tax<\/TD>
\n 		54<\/TD>
\n<\/TR><\/p>\n

<\/TABLE>The fact is that Lenny Goldberg and the gang at CalTaxReform have provided a list of at least $10 Billion for this fiscal year that broad majorities of the public supports.  At any rate, I think it’s fairly clear that far larger majorities support raising some of these revenue items over the idea of slashing, say, K-12 education.  And just in case anybody doubts that, let’s take a look at two numbers from the April 30 Field Poll<\/a>. As you can see, far larger percentages of Californians favor raising at least some of these taxes in order to avoid painful cuts to some of the biggest parts of the budget.<\/p>\n

Many are advocating for the repeal of the corporate tax cut<\/a>, and there are some great grassroots groups pushing on that front.  Some grassroots folks are working on FixTheBudgetNow<\/a>, which is pushing a variety of solutions.  And the good folks at CREDOMobile are pushing a 5 pronged plan for a portion of the deficit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1. Reverse three expensive tax concessions to businesses.<\/p>\n

2. Tax the extraction of oil.<\/p>\n

3. Update the administrative rules governing the assessment of commercial property.<\/p>\n

4. Impose a sales tax on medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

5. Tap the rainy-day fund.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are all ideas that have been discussed to some extent.  The interesting one here is the tax on medical marijuana. Asm. Ammiano (D-SF) has proposed legalizing and taxing marijuana, but this would cover only that which was already legal. CREDO is encouraging their members to sign their petition online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At this point, Legislators are getting calls from anyone and everyone. But, it is important that this process is more open than the previous attempt, so it seems to me that the ideas should keep on coming. The hard part will be solidifying on one coherent plan in order to move forward in the negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suggestions on the budget crisis are coming in from just about every possible source.  Right-wingers across the spectrum are calling for their favorite cuts.  It’s like an all you can eat buffet of cuts to Nortquistian-government slashers.<\/p>\n

But over on the progressive side, a slew of reasonable plans are emerging from a variety of organizations. The California Tax Reform Association has a detailed list of suggestions<\/a> that include a litany of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the tax code, improving collections of existing taxes, and adding a few taxes that are broadly supported.  The entire report is just a few pages, but provides a very good guide on how we proceed. Many of these suggestions are majority vote, so the question is once again Arnold’s willingness to bend to reality.<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Idea<\/TD>
\n 		Support<\/TD>
\n 		Oppose<\/TD>
\n 		D\/K<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut Police<\/TD>
\n 		23<\/TD>
\n 		74<\/TD>
\n 		3<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut K-12<\/TD>
\n 		25<\/TD>
\n 		73<\/TD>
\n 		2<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Cut Health Care for the poor<\/TD>
\n 		26<\/TD>
\n 		72<\/TD>
\n 		2<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Increase Tobacco Tax<\/TD>
\n 		75<\/TD>
\n 		N\/a<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Increase Millionaire’s Tax<\/TD>
\n 		74<\/TD>
\n<\/TR>
\n
Oil Severance Tax<\/TD>
\n 		54<\/TD>
\n<\/TR><\/p>\n

<\/TABLE>The fact is that Lenny Goldberg and the gang at CalTaxReform have provided a list of at least $10 Billion for this fiscal year that broad majorities of the public supports.  At any rate, I think it’s fairly clear that far larger majorities support raising some of these revenue items over the idea of slashing, say, K-12 education.  And just in case anybody doubts that, let’s take a look at two numbers from the April 30 Field Poll<\/a>. As you can see, far larger percentages of Californians favor raising at least some of these taxes in order to avoid painful cuts to some of the biggest parts of the budget.<\/p>\n

Many are advocating for the repeal of the corporate tax cut<\/a>, and there are some great grassroots groups pushing on that front.  Some grassroots folks are working on FixTheBudgetNow<\/a>, which is pushing a variety of solutions.  And the good folks at CREDOMobile are pushing a 5 pronged plan for a portion of the deficit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1. Reverse three expensive tax concessions to businesses.<\/p>\n

2. Tax the extraction of oil.<\/p>\n

3. Update the administrative rules governing the assessment of commercial property.<\/p>\n

4. Impose a sales tax on medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

5. Tap the rainy-day fund.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are all ideas that have been discussed to some extent.  The interesting one here is the tax on medical marijuana. Asm. Ammiano (D-SF) has proposed legalizing and taxing marijuana, but this would cover only that which was already legal. CREDO is encouraging their members to sign their petition online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At this point, Legislators are getting calls from anyone and everyone. But, it is important that this process is more open than the previous attempt, so it seems to me that the ideas should keep on coming. The hard part will be solidifying on one coherent plan in order to move forward in the negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,117],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-9112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-32","category-117","tag-60"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2mY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}