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Brown's proposal would generate nearly $7 billion in budget relief by raising income taxes on high earners and by enacting a half-cent increase in the sales tax.

Sales and use taxes in California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sales and use taxes in California are among the highest in the United States and can be levied by the state and local governments.

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Rates

At 7.25%, California has the highest minimum state sales tax in the United States, which can total up to 9.75% with local sales tax included. [1]

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake has rattled northern California on this Monday afternoon. The epicenter was centered about 6 miles from Weitchpec, California at a depth of 20.4 miles and was felt shortly after 1 PM local time.

Welcome

The oncoming wave of pension debt is even bigger than it seems. The purpose of this website is to provide an overview of the multiple pension crises that are about to drown America's taxpayers. Our primary focus is on California, but we also track other states, corporate pensions, social security and international trends. PensionTsunami.com is a project of the California Public Policy Center.

Published: Feb. 17, 2012 Updated: 10:38 a.m.

Steven Greenhut: Harris distorts democracy to aid unions

Attorney general's ballot descriptions for pension reform measures read like union talking points, prompting backers to drop their effort.

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By STEVEN GREENHUT / SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER

SACRAMENTO – We expect all sides in politics to fight hard, given the stakes involved, but our system rests on the broad acceptance of a set of fairly applied rules. We know, for instance, that no matter how nasty the coming presidential election becomes, the loser ultimately will cede power after the final count is in. This isn't a kleptocracy, where the only redress for the losing side is to take to the streets in a violent revolt.

Unfortunately, California Attorney General Kamala Harris' recent misuse of power to provide a dishonest ballot title and summary for proposed pension-reform initiatives, which she opposes, comes right out of the totalitarian playbook, where those wielding power recognize no rules of decency or fairness.

We expect judges, no matter their political stripes, to apply the law as written. We expect election officials to battle election fraud no matter their personal preference for the outcome. Likewise, we expect state attorney generals, who are the head of California's "Justice" Department, after all, to provide fair title and summaries of all initiatives submitted to that office – even ones the AG personally doesn't like. Without any civic spiritedness, people eventually will lose faith that they can make change by following the rules.

Harris, however, is a close ally of the public sector unions. And she has designs on higher office. Those unions have an iron grip on Sacramento politics, and they are doing all they can to stop the burgeoning pension reform movement. So when California Pension Reform submitted two initiatives that would rein in the unsustainable costs of the state's pension system, Harris decided to behave as a political operative and besmirch the office she holds by distorting the official descriptions that most voters rely upon when making their voting decision.

In January, she titled the reform measures: "Reduces pensions for public employees." That's flat-out wrong. Her summary was filled with distortions meant to sway voters against them. As result, last week the pension reform group dropped the initiative. They couldn't raise the $2 million needed to gather the signatures given the overwhelming obstacle Harris put in their way.

This never was going to be a fair fight. Unions would have outspent pension reformers by many multiples, but union supporters don't want to take any chances given the growing pension backlash.

It's certainly OK to hire a Democratic hack to wage a slash-and-burn anti-reform campaign, as the unions already have been doing, but it's another thing to abuse the power of the state's highest law-enforcement officer and rig the process.

Now that the pension reform measure is dead, union allies in the Legislature are saying that Gov. Jerry Brown's modest pension reform measures also are dead. As the San Diego Union-Tribune explained, one main fear the unions had was that the initiatives would give the governor leverage to force his reforms through the Democratic-controlled, union-friendly Legislature. You don't want my reforms? the governor could ask. Then you'll be stuck with tougher reforms at the ballot.

That leverage is gone.

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Brown's shift on tax hikes

The governor has agreed to modify his tax initiative, which if approved by voters would temporarily increase levies on upper-income earners and purchases.


March 15, 2012


Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to modify his tax initiative, which if approved by voters this fall would temporarily increase levies on upper-income earners and purchases in the state. Below is a comparison of the old Brown plan and the proposal Democrats unveiled Wednesday.

ORIGINAL PROPOSAL

Would raise the personal income tax rate on individuals reporting income over $250,000 by 1 percentage point. Would hike the personal income tax rate on income over $300,000 by 1.5 percentage points and the personal income tax rate on income over $500,000 by 2 percentage points for five years. Would raise the state sales tax by a half-cent per dollar for four years.

NEW PROPOSAL

Would raise the personal income tax rate on individuals reporting income over $250,000 by 1 percentage point. Would hike the personal income tax rate on income over $300,000 by 2 percentage points and the personal income tax rate on income over $500,000 by 3 percentage points for seven years. Would raise the state sales tax by a quarter-cent per dollar for four years.

Source: Senate Democratic budget office

Brackite wrote:California's unemployment rate increases to 11 percent in March after 2 months of improvement:
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/1 ... rnia-Jobs/

McGurn: Jerry Brown vs. Chris Christie

More states are realizing that the road to fiscal hell is paved with progressive intentions.

In his January 2011 inaugural address, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared it a "time to honestly assess our financial condition and make the tough choices." Plainly the choices weren't tough enough: Mr. Brown has just announced that he faces a state budget deficit of $16 billion—nearly twice the $9.2 billion he predicted in January. In Sacramento Monday, he coupled a new round of spending cuts with a call for some hefty new tax hikes.

In his own inaugural address back in January 2010, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also spoke of making tough choices for the people of his state. For his first full budget, Mr. Christie faced a deficit of $10.7 billion—one-third of projected revenues. Not only did Mr. Christie close that deficit without raising taxes, he is now plumping for a 10% across-the-board tax cut.

It's not just looks that make Mr. Brown Laurel to Mr. Christie's Hardy. It's also their political choices.

When the Obama administration's Transportation Department called on California to cough up billions for a high-speed bullet train or lose federal dollars, Mr. Brown went along. In sharp contrast, when the feds delivered a similar ultimatum to Mr. Christie over a proposed commuter rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, he nixed the project, saying his state just couldn't afford it.

On the "millionaire's" tax, Mr. Brown says that California desperately needs to approve one if the state is to recover. The one on California's November ballot kicks in at income of $250,000 and would raise the top rate to 13.3% from 10.3% on incomes above $1 million. Again in sharp contrast, when New Jersey Democrats attempted to embarrass Mr. Christie by sending a millionaire's tax to his desk, he called their bluff and promptly vetoed it.

On public-employee unions, Mr. Brown can talk a good game—at Monday's press conference, he announced a 5% pay cut for state workers, and he has proposed pension reform. Yet for all his pull with unions (the last time he was governor, he gave California's public-sector unions collective-bargaining rights), Gov. Brown, a Democrat, has not been able to accomplish what Republican Gov. Christie has: persuade a Democratic legislature to require government workers to kick in more for their health care and pensions.

Now, no one will confuse New Jersey with free-market Hong Kong. Still, because the challenges facing the Golden and Garden States are so similar, the different paths taken by their respective governors are all the more striking. And these two men are by no means alone.

Our states today are conducting a profound and contentious rethink about the right level of taxes, spending and government. Most obvious is the battle for Wisconsin. There Republican Gov. Scott Walker finds himself pitted against public-sector unions that successfully forced a recall election for June 5 after the legislature adopted the governor's package of labor reforms last spring.

Amid the turmoil—Democratic legislators fled the state to prevent a vote, while union-backed protesters occupied the Capitol—Mr. Walker looked weakened. Now he has taken the lead in polls. More than that, voters have taken the lesson: A recent Marquette University Law School poll showed only 12% of Wisconsin voters listing "restoring collective bargaining rights for public employees" as their priority.

Indeed, the American Midwest today is home to some of the biggest experiments in government. Republicans now hold both the governorships and the legislatures in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and in Wisconsin they control all but the Senate. In each they are pushing for smaller, more accountable government. The outlier is Illinois, where Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and his Democratic legislature pushed through a tax increase on their heavily indebted state.

Now ask yourself this. Can anyone look at Illinois and say to himself: I have seen the future and it works?

Indiana's Mitch Daniels, a Republican, is probably the only governor who can truly claim to have turned around a failing state. That may change if we get eight years of Mr. Christie in New Jersey. Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, also a Republican, may be another challenger for the title, having just succeeded in pushing through arguably the most far-reaching reform of any state public-school system in America.

Hard economic times bring their own lessons. Though few have been spared the ravages of the last recession and the sluggish recovery, those in states where taxes are light, government lives within its means, and the climate is friendly to investment have learned the value of the arrangement they have. They are not likely to give it up.

Meanwhile, leaders in some struggling states have taken notice. They know the road to fiscal hell is paved with progressive intentions. The question regarding the sensible ones is whether they have the will and wherewithal to impose the reforms they know their states need on the interest groups whose political and economic clout is so closely tied with the public purse.

Mr. Brown's remarks Monday suggest the answer to this question is no.