Liberalism: Death by a thousand taxes

California’s fiscal deck of cards has been destined for collapse for a long time now. No amount of fiscal trickery, glue sticks or tape can stop it. Sadly, the individual cards are the cities and counties, and they’re beginning to fall under a severe financial burden.

Two major cities — Stockton and San Bernardino — have garnered attention in recent weeks because of their fiscal insolvency. The Town of Mammoth Lakes also made the news in as many weeks as the third of four municipalities to seek bankruptcy protection. The City of Vallejo started its bankruptcy process several years ago as it too could not keep up with rising costs.

For several years now California’s golden luster has tarnished as the state’s financial position in the world sunk from what was once the worlds 6^th largest economy to the 9^th or 10^th largest now. This mess has been years in the making. It wasn’t that long ago that California was basking in the glory of a state budget windfall and budget surplus under a governor who was ultimately fired by state voters in a recall election that elevated a “B” movie actor to the top state-house position.

Say what you will about Stockton’s mess, which is a shining example of how greedy public unions are, and the false premise that private sector taxpayers will always have the money to pay public employees an opulent wage while employed and lavish salaries to live out their decades-long retirement in blissful luxury. Even San Bernardino’s published problems related to the housing crash and the loss of property tax revenue fails, while egregious in terms of the city’s ability to conservatively manage its revenues, to point a responsible finger at the true culprit of local government woes in California.

The blame rests with Sacramento

For the most part, the problems with shrinking local revenues in California cities and counties is due wholly to Sacramento’s inability to live within its means and the legal ability it has to blackmail cities and counties into picking up the tab for its spending orgies.

While some continue to claim that Proposition 13, passed by voters in the 1970’s to slow property tax rate hikes, forever killed the golden goose, the fact remains that the State of California has developed a fetish for spending money at rates faster than it can be created, earned and taxed. Additionally, California’s fulltime legislature and bureaucratic machine had developed a keen ability to pass the buck, quite literally, down to the cities and counties by forcing local governments to pick up the tab for things that were formerly paid for through state taxes.

In the early 1990’s, California legislators discovered that they could force cities and counties to give up their local sources of revenue under the notion that they ought to pay for the public education from which they more closely benefit. Never mind that the state up until then had always paid for public education through its own tax stream.

Just 10 years earlier California voters were asked to approve a state lottery, from which oodles and gobs of money would be added to public education. As it turned out, that became just another example in a long list of schemes borne in Sacramento to extract money from gullible Californians. Here’s how that scheme worked: As the mandated amount of money from lottery revenues was given to public education, a like amount of money was withheld from public education, to be spent elsewhere. In short, for every dollar the schools got from the lottery, at least a dollar was withheld from traditional general fund expenditures to public education. To California legislators, the lottery simply became a new source of money to be dolled out in any way they saw fit.

Under California’s 1990’s scheme to defraud local governments and voters, local governments would give up their sole source of funding for public safety and services. That started a landslide of local, targeted tax measures aimed at filling local budget deficits by jacking up local property tax and sales tax rates.

The selling point for these tax hikes was simple: do you want police and fire? Then agree to raise your local sales and property tax rates? What were local voters to do?

Shortly after this mess was created by Sacramento politicians, a local county supervisor in one of California’s more sparsely populated counties, announced out of frustration during budget hearings that he might as well resign as more than 95% of that county’s revenue was mandated by state and federal bureaucracies to be spent on specific programs. So much for local control!

Trying to be a responsible and inquisitive newspaper reporter at the time, I asked a county executive officer why cities and counties didn’t merely keep the taxes they collected and use them locally, rather than sending 100% of it to the state, only to get less than that back. His short and politically correct answer was that this is not how it works in California.

It still puzzles me, what with 58 individual counties, hundreds of cities and their thousands of elected representatives, Sacramento’s 120 legislators can’t be bullied into doing the right thing for the millions of people who live in California’s cities and counties and rely upon the services they provide.

While this doesn’t immediately address local cities like Stockton and others, who are drowning in a sea of debt created in large part by selfish public employees unions, the fact remains that had Sacramento not stolen local tax revenues from the cities and counties, then maybe local governments would be in a better position to afford the excessive salaries that only public employees enjoy.

Related articles

• Another California Bankruptcy, Away From the Coast – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• As San Bernardino declares bankruptcy, experts debate whether it’s another fluke, or another domino (mercurynews.com)
• More city bankruptcies on California horizon? – MarketWatch (marketwatch.com)
• Dan Walters: California just as insolvent as bankrupt cities (sacbee.com)
• Stockton, California, Files for Bankruptcy Protection – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• As San Bernardino declares bankruptcy, experts debate whether it’s another fluke, or another domino (mercurynews.com)

You may say that I’m a dreamer: I’m not the only one

The Golden Gate Bridge recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and stands as an icon of California’s once-golden economy.

It’s been a couple years since I fled California. The lack of jobs chased me from what I think should be renamed “The Tarnished State.” California is certainly not golden anymore, not in the economic or political sense.

So when I read the Facebook comment of a fellow conservative the other morning, I had to chuckle… not at her, but at her comment.

Happy for Wisconsin, not so much for California…..Feinstein, Waxman, Waters, Stark, Schiff, ugh. Really, again, Cali??? For a state full of ‘artists & dreamers’ you certainly don’t have much imagination when it comes to politicians. Apparently the majority of voters are perfectly happy paying insanely high taxes, having businesses move to other states, paying almost $5 for gas, maintaining one of the worst public school systems in the US, etc etc. At least the weather’s nice…sigh.

A couple words in her comment caused me to ponder. California has typically been known as a state chock full of artists and dreamers. After all, Hollywood exists there. Aside from that, you can’t travel far within California without coming across an art gallery or a book featuring the gorgeous and diverse landscapes that cover over half of America’s left coast.

What is it about the vast majority of voters in California who seem stuck in the rut of failed feel-good political policies? Has California lost its ability to dream big?

I’m not talking about $68 billion bullet trains or other stupid, costly ideas. After all, isn’t California also home to the Silicon Valley and ideas that started companies such as Apple and Microsoft? Maybe California’s proposed bullet train wouldn’t be such a colossal example of stupidity if everyone who wanted to in the state was employed or otherwise engaged in the creation of ample amounts of private capital that could be taxed at a reasonable rate so as to support a limited government bent on perpetuating the advance of more private capital. It’s rather ironic that a state that is tens of billions of dollars in debt and over-extended in spending can even consider adding four times its current budget deficit in additional debt for a bullet train through the world’s most productive agricultural land, but I digress.

Where’s California’s imagination for the next great private equity start-up that could once-again make it one of the world’s top 5 economies? But maybe that’s not the best first question to ask. After all, there are those who still live there who remember voting in a recall election to oust a governor who was blamed for skyrocketing utility rates, even though California boasted the worlds fifth largest economy at the same time. Now, two governors later the state has sunk to the 9th largest economy in the world and is still trying to convince its remaining residents (20-some percent of which do not work and are therefore not capable of paying taxes to fund such ventures) that the problem is that Californians aren’t paying enough taxes!

Why, with all the talent, intelligence and ingenuity — just think big dreams — in California do voters continue to elect people with a proven track record of stifling, stealing and suppressing those dreams? Where’s the motivation, desire and foresight for bigger and better, or has it already fled for other states where their elected representatives don’t tax and regulate those dreams out of existence?

California once had several very large (albeit public) projects going on simultaneously, the product of dreamers who accomplished things seemingly insurmountable. One of those projects just celebrated its 75th anniversary of completion and still stands as a picturesque icon that proves that big dreams, matched with skill, ingenuity and foresight, along with the political will of the people, can accomplish great things.

I don’t think all is lost for California, though it sure seems like it at times. All it will take is the political will of the people, dreaming big, and of a limited government, bending to the will of the people and their dreams, for a greater California where ideas aren’t taxed and over-regulated beyond their ability to be realized.

Some unanswered questions and thoughts of a former journalist

Let’s see if I understand this correctly: I can own a private enterprise that is quite profitable and makes lots of money for me; those who choose to invest in my company and my employees. I can play by the rules and still get hauled before a bunch of self-important, pious egotists masquerading as esteemed Senators to defend my business acumen because somehow, somewhere, the premise was proffered that my legal business, which pays millions of dollars in taxes to support these government hacks, is somehow evil.

Meanwhile, the same government hacks that I support with the taxes generated from my private business, can support programs that run guns across international borders so that foreign agents can then execute a war against the country that my taxes support, but when I ask my congressman why he won’t assume his constitutional authority to declare war against the people firing at my neighbors from across the same international border, I’m laughed at as if my suggestion is ludicrous. Imagine if we’d had the same attitude on Dec. 7, 1941.

Some more questions and observations:

• What’s the difference between what Bernie Madoff did to private investors and what the United States government is doing to its citizens via Social Security?
• When George W. Bush sent troops to the Middle East to fight a war the media called him a warmonger and wanted to drag him to his death.
• When Barrack Hussein Obama sent troops to the Middle East to fight a war the media called him brave.
• The George W. Bush tax cuts were gifts to corporate cronies and the rich until Obama was given the choice to let them expire, then they were the right thing to do.
• Exxon is chastised for not paying its “fair share” of taxes while General Electric can pay no taxes on billions in profits and its CEO receives presidential treatment and access.
• The same communist regimes that we once touted as our enemies are more profitable, more capitalistic and run their governments with lower tax rates than we do? Did you know that Russia has a flat tax and collects more money than it ever did because of it, or that China regularly visits American businesses in order to learn how to replicate our capitalistic successes?
• How did health care become a right and the ownership of firearms by free citizens become outlawed? What constitutional amendment covers health care?
• Who decided that it was more important to pay people to literally dig through the trash of a former governor than it was to dig into the past of the man who would soon become President of the United States? Why weren’t more people alarmed when two veteran news journalists openly admitted that they knew nothing about the background of Barack Hussein Obama, or what his thoughts and motivations were?

Related articles

• Unanswered question – What about the Wall St. meeting? (politico.com)

Ceding America’s sovereignty through food policy

American sovereignty is probably in no greater danger than now as Congress moves to cede decisions on agricultural production and policy to the World Trade Organization and labyrinth of unelected government officials within the United States, including the Department of Homeland Security.

Section 404 of the Food Safety Modernization Act: Declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

Why add language like this unless it’s the goal of Congress to cede control of our food supply to a nefarious body of despots? But I’m not the only one asking these questions. Check out this video and its assorted links. Even more information can be found at the Food Freedom blog.

 

America's sovereignty has always been anchored in our ability to be agriculturally self-sufficient. A bill in Congress would strip that ability from us.

The Food Safety Modernization Act will arguably establish suffocating layers of regulation upon American agriculture, to the point that American agriculture will cease to exist. As I’ve written in the past, American agriculture is truly our last bastion of sovereignty. When we lose the ability to sovereignly control our own food supply we will no longer be able to control our political destiny. Those who set our agricultural policy and ultimately provide us with our food will have complete control over us. Given that ours is a world of despotic power it’s not entirely unreasonable that our food supply could ultimately be controlled by the same kind of cartels that already control our oil and energy supplies.

Speaking of the word “reasonable,” S510 uses this word three times as it cedes czar powers to the various department secretaries within the US government. For example:

Section 101 -

Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) to expand the authority of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to inspect records related to food, including to: (1) allow the inspection of records of food that the Secretary reasonably believes is likely to be affected in a similar manner as an adulterated food; and (2) require that each person (excluding farms and restaurants) who manufactures, processes, packs, distributes, receives, holds, or imports an article of food permit inspection of his or her records if the Secretary believes that there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to such food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

Section 102 -

Authorizes the Secretary to suspend the registration of a food facility if the food manufactured, processed, packed, or held by a facility has a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

Section 305 -

Requires the Secretary to determine whether a country can provide reasonable assurances that the food supply of the country meets or exceeds the safety of food manufactured, processed, packed, or held in the United States.

What is “reasonable” to our government officials? It seems that nothing in government is “reasonable” anymore given their track record to overstep constitutional authority.

Lest we forget that government is in the business to grow its size and control over our lives, this measure outlines the implementation of numerous yet-to-be-determined taxes upon our lives. Let’s take a look:

Section 107 -

Directs the Secretary to assess and collect fees related to: (1) food facility reinspection; (2) food recalls; (3) the voluntary qualified importer program; and (4) importer reinspection. Applies export certification provisions to food.

Section 401 –

Authorizes appropriations for FY2010-FY2014 for the activities of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the Center for Veterinary Medicine, and related field activities in the Office of Regulatory Affairs of the FDA. Directs the HHS Secretary to increase the field staff of such Centers and Office.

When has government not ever mandated something that it first didn’t make “voluntary?” This is another dangerous idea on a slippery slope towards despotism.

Section 112 -

Requires the Secretary to develop and make available to local educational agencies, schools, early childhood education programs, and interested entities and individuals guidelines for developing plans for individuals to manage the risk of food allergy and anaphylaxis in schools and early childhood education programs, to be implemented on a voluntary basis. Sets forth issues for such guidelines to address, including: (1) parental obligation to provide documentation of their child’s food allergy; (2) the creation of an individual plan for food allergy management; (3) communication strategies between schools or childhood education programs and providers of emergency medical services; and (4) strategies to reduce the risk of exposure to anaphylactic causative agents in classrooms and common school or early childhood education program areas, such as cafeterias. Allows the Secretary to award matching grants to assist local educational agencies in implementing such food allergy and anaphylaxis management guidelines.

The authority that Congress grants the various department secretaries is tantamount to the unconstitutional authority granted the treasury secretary to set and enforce financial policy of America. Congress is ceding control to unelected officials who, by default, become czars of their respective agencies, able to rule by edict absent constitutional controls. What’s wrong with our current system that this HAS to take place?

Just in case there wasn’t enough government control written into the act, read this:

Section 210 -

Requires the Secretary to set standards and administer training and education programs for the employees of state, local, territorial, and tribal food safety officials relating to the regulatory responsibilities and policies established by this Act. Authorizes and encourages the Secretary to conduct examinations, testing, and investigations for the purposes of determining compliance with the food safety provisions of this Act through the officers and employees of such state, local, territorial, or tribal agency.

What does this mean? Don’t we have grocery stores even in rural areas? This can’t be good! Take a look at this:

Section 406 -

Requires the Secretary, acting through the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, to study the transportation of food for consumption in the United States, including an examination of the unique needs of rural and frontier areas with regard to the delivery of safe food.

Why do we need any government agency studying how food is transported to rural areas unless the goal is to cut off those rural regions from the rest of the country? It can’t be to improve efficiencies because we know government is incapable of that. We already have a network of highways and railroad routes capable of transporting goods around America. Aren’t these sufficient to get groceries to the rural regions of the United States?

While this plan is arguably aimed at food safety, America already has the highest standards for food safety in the world. We merely need to enforce those standards and ensure that the food we import meets those same high standards. This is not an issue of food safety for the sake of food safety; it’s really an issue of granting control to an international organization whose board of directors is reminiscent of the Star Wars bar scene, and whose members do not have the best interest of the United States as its core beliefs and desire.

Government budget priorities all wrong

Why do politicians continually threaten to cut teachers, firefighters and cops at the first hint of government budget woes, but ignore the the abject waste in government spending?

Rush had a great question this morning: if you’re a regular citizen cutting your expenses where do you cut first? Do you eliminate spending on your utilities and food at the expense of the luxuries, or do you cut luxuries such as cable television and a new cell phone?

I’m tired of the games played by politicians, which is nothing more than a ruse to force local residents into raising their own taxes because our elected representatives refuse to make the difficult decisions we require of them.

Taxing Californians out of existence

A generation ago consumers thought the best way to help the environment was to rid grocery stores of paper bags in favor of the more convenient plastic bags. The move  to rid stores of paper bags was aimed at curbing what environmentalists claimed was the clear cutting of America’s forests. In forested areas of the West the icon of this move became a relatively small owl that environmentalists claimed was being killed off by the timber industry.

Fast-forward a generation and now those “convenient” plastic bags that break if you put more than a loaf of bread in them are “evil” and must be taxed out of existence. It’s not enough to simply force grocers to go back to paper bags, the California legislature wants to mandate that grocers charge for those plastic bags. While these charges will obviously be passed along to consumers as a direct tax on their grocery bill, legislators will likely make the purchase of these bags a taxable transaction, meaning for every bag sold, the state will collect an additional amount in sales tax.

With California tens of billions of dollars in the financial hole and businesses fleeing the state, taking their jobs with them, California’s dimwitted solution to a non-existent problem is to create an even worse problem for the tarnished state. No longer can we be called the “golden state.”

Record companies want Congress to tax radio

In a move destined to pull the plug on music radio, Congress is currently being asked by record companies to consider imposing a new fee on radio stations for playing the music that we currently enjoy. As if businesses aren’t already taxed enough, this will cause more jobs to evaporate in America.

The ramifications will be far-reaching. We’ve already seen proposals for Congress to further regulate talk radio, now Congress is being asked to tax music radio.

Consider the for-profit radio stations that you listen to while commuting (for those who still have jobs to commute to). Paying a tax on the music they play will either force stations to stop playing music altogether or attempt to pass those taxes off to their advertisers in the form of higher advertising rates. This double-whammy on businesses big and small, who too are struggling to make ends meet and have themselves cut their marketing budgets as a means to free up cash flow, will not stop there as the effects will continue to ripple through the economy. Ironically, a well-placed and well-established marketing plan (whether in print or broadcast) is essential for businesses to reach new customers. What business is going to be able to afford to market themselves on radio, the one medium with significant reach throughout America, if the rates they have to pay are taxed by Congress?

This plan will have an even greater impact on the listener-supported Christian radio stations that millions of us across America listen to on a daily basis. Christian radio supports and uplifts so many people and has been credited with saving marriages, preventing suicides, and simply providing folks with a hope in something greater than themselves. The songs played on Christian radio are responsible for the rise in popularity of countless musical artists, which accounts for a large number of jobs and vast economic impacts throughout the United States.

According to KLOVE radio’s Web site, “imposing a new performance fee will force many stations across the country to stop playing music. The irony is this new fee that is being proposed in order to help struggling artists will actually send half of this proposed fee to the record companies, many of whom are owned by foreign corporations, and not to the artists that they claim it will help.

“For decades, radio stations have played and promoted music from artists and record labels. Radio stations have always had the liberty of playing music free of charge, and meanwhile artists and record labels have taken advantage of this free promotion. Most importantly, listeners all over the United States have enjoyed listening to music from a variety of radio stations and genres.”

The very idea that Congress is being asked to raise taxes on a segment of the American economy in a time where the economic foundation of America continues to crumble is at best egregious. Who in their right mind, when they see someone down and struggling to get up kicks them or shoves their head toward the ground instead of offering a helping hand? Yet daily we read of and hear more examples of Congress doing just that to regular Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.

According to KLOVE, this will not help the “struggling artists” who have their music played for free on radio stations across America. Much of this money will wind up in the pockets of the companies that claim to represent the artists, companies that make their money on the backs of the artists and the intellectual property they create. But given the idea that you can’t tax a company into success, these regressive taxes will simply cause more of America’s economy to falter and fail in a time when Congress should be doing all it can to get out of the way and encourage the free enterprise system to work and flourish.

The unintended consequences of such a move will be, as KLOVE reports, to force radio stations to stop playing music because they won’t be able to cover the additional taxes through higher advertising rates. For the non-profit radio station this will be the last nail in the coffin. Once this happens how will the artists, and more specifically the recording companies supporting this move, make their money when the rest of us have no way of discovering the artists these recording companies represent? This will not only severely impact current artists, who’s work we are familiar with, but will kill any opportunity for new artists, who will have no way of having their work featured. And, getting back to the idea of marketing, how will the consumer become aware of artist projects, concerts, etc. without the very radio stations that regularly feature new and popular artists? It’s like the business owner who never advertises but expects the public to walk through his doors and buy his products simply because he has a door that opens onto the public street.

This proposal will kill listener-supported Christian radio in America and will severely and forever change how for-profit radio is run in America. Congress needs to stay out of the pockets of businesses in America and get back to the very limited Constitutional roll they have in providing for the common defense and promoting the general welfare. Contact your local Congressman and encourage him or her to oppose this business-killing idea.

Time for government to sell, not buy property

I just read something that definitely falls under the “YOU-HAVE-TO-BE-KIDDING!” category.

While California is lining up with other states to beg the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for bailout money, and Governor Schwarzenegger is touring California to convince us that paying more taxes is a good thing, the California State Parks Department has come up with a plan to buy up more land and build more state parks.

Has anyone told the folks in the state parks department that California is broke? Where’s this money going to come from?

If anything, the state ought to be trying to sell property, not acquire it!

Here in the Central Valley the California State Parks department is proposing a 2,300-acre acquisition, from “willing sellers” of course, for a park in the Exeter area of Tulare County. Again I ask: where’s the money going to come from to pay for this land acquisition? Beyond that, how do we pay to construct this park and then pay for its upkeep when we can’t even afford to pay for what we’ve committed to already?

There’s a report titled “Central Valley Vision Draft Implementation Plan” online at http://www.parks.ca.gov/planning that I’m sure details a whole bunch of reasons why we need more state parks. I say, “I’m sure,” because I only scanned it quickly. I’m sure it cost way too much money to produce, and somebody in Sacramento thinks it’s a great report. Nevertheless, it’s ridiculous! No. It’s offensive!
Proposing such a plan is offensive to every taxpayer in California who had to pay someone to come up with this idea, and now waste even more money as bureaucrats run around trying to sell this idea in a financial era where taxpayers are having to ration food at home, forgo prescription medication and trips to the doctor because we can’t afford it, and cut back in other areas of our personal budgets because the money is simply not there. California ought to be wildly slashing its budget. There are entire departments at the state level that could be eliminated, other departments could be cut back drastically and state legislator pay and benefits could easily be cut by 50-to-75 percent. The Governor said it himself: we are in an emergency here, and it’s time that everybody contribute. Well Governor, if “we” and “all” is inclusive, then let’s start at the top and let’s drastically cut government first. I’m not talking surgical cuts here; I’m talking wholesale fiscal amputations!

As much as I like state parks, it’s time to bite the bullet. California ought not be in the business of acquiring land — in fact, no government entity should ever be in the business of acquiring land; certainly not in these times! Rather, California needs to be on a mission to sell as much property as possible and put it back on the property tax rolls. Right now there is more real estate out there owned by government entities in California than there is private property. Between the U.S. government and its federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, the California State Parks system, the various cities and counties, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns much of the Eastern Sierra and its water, there’s simply way too much government-owned land out there that could be sold by government, and that money used to pay down the debt that government has shackled the taxpayers with.

Conserve our tax dollars instead

Much has been made recently over comments by Sen. Barak Obama and his belief that we can simply conserve our way out of our need for foreign oil. Obama thinks we can properly inflate our tires and save so much oil that our gasoline prices will plummet.

There’s a shred of common sense to these comments. It’s true that properly inflated tires are good. Properly inflated tires will optimize the life of your tires and optimize the fuel economy your car gets. But that’s all common sense.

I find it ironic that Liberals like Sen. Obama will extol the idea that everyone doing his or her part to save a couple pennies in gas is a good thing, and it is. Why then isn’t it good that government maintains the lowest possible tax rates in order to save a few pennies here and there for taxpayers.

Every time there’s a new tax increase, particularly at the local level, we’re all led to believe that the increase will “only” cost us the equivalent of a McDonald’s hamburger a month or a single trip to Starbucks. With that kind of thinking is it any wonder why our tax-and-spend legislators remain clueless?

I propose that we start loudly exclaiming to Congress and our state Legislators that they “conserve” more, rather than waste all that money they have. Just think if every state and federal agency conserved just 1 percent of their budget and didn’t spent it at all. Look at all the dollars we could save and put back in the pockets of taxpayers.