For those of us who think it would be terrible public policy for the voters of California to raise taxes this November, Sacramento Democrats continue to be the “gift that keeps on giving” in terms of actions that will cause the already skeptical electorate to have more reasons not to want to send any more of their tax dollars to Sacramento.
A very quick recap — just in the last week and a half we had:
- The approval of billions of dollars of indebtedness on an incredibly unpopular high speed rail boondoggle.
- The discovery that the better part of a thousand legislative staff members have been getting raises while state employees are taking furloughs.
- The revelation that despite the audit functions of the Democrat Controller and the Democrat Legislature, the Parks Agency within Democrat Jerry Browns Administration had squirreled away north of $50 million dollars, that were totally off the grid.
Now to add to all of that, news headlines are now spotlighting a legislative effort, spearheaded by senior Democrat Senator Elaine Alquist, to spend tens of millions of dollars to — brace yourself — subsidize the building of a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. Seriously.
You tell me how this could possibly help the any of the tax increase measures on the November ballot?
- If there is money to waste on high speed rail — why raise taxes?
- If there is money to drop on giving raises to legislative staffers – why raise taxes?
- If you can’t even keep track of over $50 million that you already have – why raise taxes?
- If there is enough money to publicly subsidize sporting arenas – why raise taxes?
You can’t make this stuff up.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association already is running a statewide radio ad blasting the high speed rail spending — the first item on the list. Anyone care to guess which piece of questionable spending or lack of oversight they bring up next?