What effect would proposed tax increases really have?

Sacramento Bee ^ | 4/15/12 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Over the coming months of gestation about taxation, California voters will be inundated with claims, counterclaims and other forms of propaganda.

We still don't know how many major tax proposals will be on the November ballot. It'll be at least one, but whether it's the one that Jerry Brown, other Democratic politicians and labor unions want, or the one that civil rights attorney Molly Munger and the PTA want, is still unknown.

Most likely, it'll be both.

Brown, having merged his original tax proposal with one pushed by a left-wing coalition, now wants to hike sales taxes by a quarter-cent and raise marginal tax rates on those with high incomes. Munger would raise income taxes on everyone except the very poor, but hit those at the top the hardest.

Both, it's said, would raise in the vicinity of $9 billion-plus a year, Brown's to narrow the state's budget deficit and Munger's going all to schools.

The revenue numbers, however, are more than a bit squirrelly because it's really impossible to accurately estimate capital gains and other non-salary incomes of those in the upper brackets. The Legislature's budget analyst, in fact, says that Brown's numbers are too high.

[SmithL]

Facts don't matter. Class warfare and the ability to increase taxes is all that really matters.

[EGPWS]

California and taxes.

It's synonymous with love and marriage.

[The Working Man]

I am very grateful I don’t live in California. Much of the state is beautiful, but I found that those places are mostly far away from the Liberal/Democrat strongholds.

As far as new taxes go, watch private spending decrease even further or perhaps the black and gray markets will start to soar.

[Chode]

and exodus is synonymous divorce...

[blueunicorn6]

Jerry Brown on cause and effect-

“Boy, Sutter, it sure is hot in here. I guess I’ll turn up the thermostat to cool things down.”

[blueunicorn6]

“Sutter! Our boat is sinking! Quick! Drill some holes to let the water out!”

[blueunicorn6]

“I keep flushing these dollar bills down the toilet to plug the leak in the gutter, Sutter, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I know! I’ll start flushing hundred dollar bills down the toilet! They’re bigger bills! That’s sure to work!”

[I am Richard Brandon]

"A $9 billion pop would be less than a 6 percent increase in the level of state and local taxation, now about $160 billion a year. The increase would also be less than one-half of one percent of California's economic output. In purely economic terms, therefore, it would be tiny and by itself would be unlikely to have any appreciable impact, positive or negative, on the state's economy."

Dan Walters is not exactly a great thinker. A bullet can bring down an elephant but it is tiny compared to the elephant's size.

[RedMDer]

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