If high taxes and unions are so good for an economy then why is California on the verge of bankruptcy?
California has some of the highest taxes and the strongest unions in the country and they are about to go under. When they do they will ask for and receive a government bailout and the unions will still be there sitting on the piles of money they stole from the states coffers.
2010-12-09T15:24:34Z
@ John did you read the question? I don't know where you learned to read"
2010-12-09T15:29:15Z
@Anna P Sounds like a typical union line to me, which one do you belong to?
2010-12-09T16:17:59Z
@ Will, if you read the question all the way through you would see that I did not say Cali has the highest taxes in the country, I said some of the highest, you are typical of the problem with Liberals you only see what you want to and interpret things out of context. How about focusing on the question and just answering without all of the emotion.
who WAS #1?2010-12-09T17:15:11Z
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Agreed, but illegal aliens are also a huge drain on the Public Treasury.
Most of what you claim is simply false. California does not have the highest taxes in the country (for the record, the highest income taxes are in Oregon, and the highest business taxes are in New York), and 46 of the 50 states are having serious budget problems.
But since the November election California's bond rating has improved two points. This is because the voters approved a constitutional amendment that no longer requires a 2/3 majority in each house to pass a budget. Plus they chose as a new governor someone who understands economics, over someone who still doesn't understand why her online business became a success.
All of these things are easy to find on the web, if you do a bit of research, instead of just ranting.
Because in 1979 we crippled out state with Prop 13. We locked down property tax rates (previously our biggest source of local tax revenue) and handicapped Sacramento with a 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget.
Pegging the state's income to business and income taxes was a recipe for disaster. Recessions happen, and when they do, the state's coffers dry up. This leads to deferred maintenance on roads and other infrastructure which needs to be done (and a higher cost) when revenues go up. The 2/3rds majority requirement meant annual gridlock and watered-down budgets that fixed nothing and failed to address the root causes of the problems.
We've gotten rid of one of the problems, Californians passed a measure that removes the 2/3rds requirement for any thing other than raising taxes.
Well, there is this recession....People have written off CA many times and they always come back. The housing bubble made this time much worse. There are not the strongest unions in the country--none of the high tech business (or very little) is unionized and that is huge in CA. Government workers do not steal, they are awarded their salaries etc. Sounds like your ears have been glued to Rush Limbaugh--same old tired lies.
They have something else you didn't mention, a system of propositions which allows the people to vote on what they want, and what they don't want, and they wanted expensive items and they didn't vote to increase their taxes to pay for them.
You do that over a number of years and you get what they got, their spending still outpaced their taxes.
Unions aren't stealing that money, they have to report every cent in and out. Far more inspections are required of them than of the banks who wrote crazy mortgages. \ And I'll save you the time, we are a Teamster family, for thirty years. and we get a pension, while the poor bastards at Worldcom and Enron got taken for a ride, because the government didn't trust the Teamsters, and did trust the businessmen.