Posted on 06/13/2018 6:26:07 AM PDT by Mariner
California state government has so much money this year that it’s opening two new savings accounts so it can keep socking away even more cash for the rainy day that Gov. Jerry Brown says is just over the horizon.
That tactic — setting a course to pile up $16 billion in savings over the next 12 months — should reassure taxpayers that cuts to government services won’t be as severe as they were a decade ago when the state’s economy plummeted into the Great Recession.
But the money is inviting a different kind ofpolitical problem for majority Democrats. It could be used to fuel the campaign that would repeal the 12-cent-a-gallon gas tax that they and Brown championed last year to lock in $52 billion in road repair funding for the next decade.
That record surplus gives gas tax opponents a simple message for their social media posts and radio ads.
“Why do we need the highest gas tax in the nation when we have this surplus?” asked Jon Coupal, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who is working on the gas tax repeal campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
They claimed poverty was the reason the gas tax was needed as the state could not afford to fix roads.
ML/NJ
“Suppose they had a cut in government services “
They would rot in the gutters of hell first.
They’ll just pump up their own pensions .
“Aaaaand....it’s gone”
I thought the elimination of the state tax subsidy(SALT) was going to leave Cali. broke. Yet another liberal lie.
The $$$$ will go to the Bullet train disaster.
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article209303974.html
That or the state’s outstanding debt. There is no such thing as a surplus if you are in debt.
That "rainy day" is your secession from the union, when you will owe your share of the national debt.
16 billion? That’s enough to build 5 desalination facilities, infrastructure to move the water to reservoirs, solar and wind farms to run the facilities and still have enough money to pad some government employees OT.
California is being smart. Boom times are when government should stockpile revenues, then they can cut taxes to help when the economy slows.
If you cut taxes when the economy is strong, what do you do when growth falls, as cyclically it always does? Unlike the Federal government California cannot print unbacked IOU’s.
Add to which one strongly suspects that any surplus is overstated.
“looming massive shortfall in your pension fund”
They’re saving that for another “special tax” just for pensions.
They promise this time.
“Unlike the Federal government California cannot print unbacked IOU’s”
Sure they can.
They are State Revenue Bonds.
The pension funds own $10’s of billions of them.
Because with slight of hand accounting it will be redirected to the tens of billions of underfunded State Employees Pension Funds.
Give money back to people who’ve earned it???
NONSENSE!!!!
Build a couple desalination plants.
Refund? You get NOTHING!
All your money are belong to us.
Perhaps they could shore up their pension funds.
“Unlike the Federal government California cannot print unbacked IOU’s”
They issued IOUs before, in 1991 or 92, when the legislature did not pass a budget. I do not believe they were backed by anything. They were paying teachers and other state workers with IOUs that earned 7 or 8 percent interest, which was not high at that time. They urged private businesses to accept them.
The private businesses who did accept the IOUs then started threatening to use the IOUs to pay their state taxes if the budget impasse lasted through tax season.
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