Word: taxed
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Conservatives claim California is a high tax state. In fact, California's taxes are similar to other high-tech, industrial states. According to the non-partisan Legislative Analyst Office and the Tax Foundation, California has comparatively high sales taxes and rates for corporate income, but very low property taxes. State income taxes are very progressive, with a large proportion of revenue comes from households earning more than $100,000, as well as from taxes on stock options and capital gains. Low-income households, meanwhile, face lower tax rates that in most other states. This tax system, says Steve Peace, director...
...there a solution to California's dilemma? A number of reforms are receiving attention. On the tax and budget side, these include eliminating the need for a two-thirds majority vote on budget and tax matters and instituting a split-roll for property taxes that would allow homeowners to continue to pay according to the low rates mandated by Proposition 13, but require commercial property to be assessed at market value. To relieve the logjam in California politics, momentum is growing for an open primary system, in which the two top vote getters in the primary, regardless of party, would...
...constitutional convention. That, of course, could be a can of worms. Erwin Chemerinsky, a leading constitutional scholar and dean of the University of California Irvine Law School, argues that advocates for budget sanity should first try a ballot measure to change the two-thirds vote requirement on budget and tax measures. "If a statewide initiative to eliminate the two-thirds majority requirement can pass, that will solve a lot of the problem," Chemerinsky says. "And then it makes sense to move on to a constitutional convention...
Proposition 13 further altered California politics by requiring a two-thirds majority for tax increases either at the state or local level. This requirement along with a constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a budget - the result of a proposition passed in 1933 - means it is far more difficult to raise taxes or pass a budget in California than in other states. For more than 30 years California has been living with a system of minority rule in which 34% of the legislature or a local community can stonewall the majority. Facing this post-Proposition 13 system...
...single piece of legislation, it included thousands of funding streams for tens of thousands of projects. About $144 billion is allocated directly into state coffers for continuing existing programs that have been heavily burdened by the recession, like Medicaid. Hundreds of billions more have been set aside for tax cuts and continuing benefits to the poor and unemployed. The most visible part of the program, and the most politically explosive, is the roughly $152 billion for infrastructure investment, for which no one had a road map. In some cases, states and localities could spend those funds pretty much...