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State of California is broke

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by poindexter, May 31, 2012.

  1. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    The welfare payments would count against government spending (and do you have a link on 32% of welfare recipients being in California, I have read the statistic but never seen a source?). What percentage of the population actually receives welfare payments?

    But let's do a hypothetical exercise. We will cut California taxation by 20%. Per capita taxation would go down to about the level of Virginia. So presumably LTL would pay seven percent income and property tax and $4,000 in property tax. Which is still a hell of a lot more than he would pay in Northern Virginia. So I think that because Prop 13 exempts so much property, especially commercial, that it really plays havoc with the state tax base.
     
  2. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Lancey - I don't think California is necessarily overtaxed, or undertaxed. But the burden certainly falls on a small segment.. the per capita doesn't work for me.

    I am MUCH more concerned with the expenditures than the tax side in CA. I think the money is spent HORRIBLY.


    For the calculation, go to the right columns and divide the CA recipients by the country's.

    http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/2008/2008_recipient_tan.htm
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That's the conclusion if you assume the state isn't overspending. But public employee expenditures have grown so much in the past 20 years -- and particularly in the past 10 years since Gray Davis gave away the store to the prison guards to secure their endorsement and look tough on crime.

    Again, I agree that Prop 13 needs fixing. But the public employee costs are the killer here. San Jose has cut 2,000 employees in the last 10 years and yet their total employee expenditures have increased by $200 million per year. It's a scene being repeated all over the state.
     
  4. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Legalize pot and close some prisons.
     
  5. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    I don't have a problem with the pot issue, one way or another.

    We have a shitload of criminals here, legal or illegal citizens. Closing prisons isn't the answer. Bringing the per/prisoner expense to something even close to a Texas is the answer. But California can't because they've given the Goldman Sachs treatment to the prison guards.

    Stitch, I am going to take a wild guess and say you don't live in California, correct?
     
  6. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Legalizing pot and taxing the hell out of it would help a bit... The prisons are already ridiculously overcrowded.

    I read somewhere where some cities were paying three generations of salaries to government workers, teachers, cops, and firemen. There's the current group and the two groups before them. Because they can retire so early (50s) the state ends up owing them pension for 30-40 years. The cities are paying more for those who aren't working than they are for those who are.
     
  7. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    You'd have to keep the prisons open because all the pot-heads would become tax cheats instead.
     
  8. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    I like the Rule of 90 regarding pensions where your age and time of service have to equal 90 to retire. The retirement age needs to be upped, and also double dipping where you "retire" and collect a full pension, then keep working, should be banned. I don't know how much money that would save by doing those two things.

    If health care is ever decoupled from the employer, that saves a ton of cash as well.
     
  9. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Born and raised there, but left 12 years ago and every time I go back (my parents and brothers still live there), it just feels like an unmitigated disaster.

    Some friends just moved there -- he works for a big-boy Silicon Valley company and it was a transfer. Warned them of what to expect in terms of cost of living/taxes vs. living here. They kind of pooh-poohed it since he got a nice raise in an attempt to offset it. Got a text from them after they've been there a week. "Damn, it's expensive out here."

    No fake.

    Me: "Yeah, and you haven't bought a place yet and seen the property tax bill."

    I miss a lot of aspects of it, but it's changed so much from the many years I lived there -- and not for the better.
     
  10. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the link. It says about three percent of the population in California drew welfare in 2008-2009. And in Georgia, to pick another large state, about one half of one percent receive welfare. I humbly suggest that the 2.5 percent of the population that would be picking up assistance checks in California do not contribute a lot to the tax revenues of Georgia.

    But the reason I think the tax base of California is so narrow and forces the tax burden on to a small segment is the grandfathering that has occurred under Proposition 13.
     
  11. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    I think high speed rail is a boondoggle. And the prison guards are overpaid. But I also think that classroom sizes are to large and more teachers should be hired.

    But at what level would you decide that spending has been cut enough? If prison costs are cut 50%? That would save Californians about $125 per person. If high speed rail is canceled? In a state as large as California there will always be something to point to and say, well, I don't mind paying for more teachers once they take care of that object of waste, be it prison guards or welfare or whatever.

    But in my experience that object tends to be a moving target. And meanwhile, the teachers will keep getting fired and class sizes keep getting bigger.
     
  12. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    If it's ever going to get better some tough and extremely unpopular decisions would have to be made.
     
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