Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Wants to Raise Our Taxes
Categories: Concord Headlines
Written By: Concord Blogger
Reacting to a gaping $11.2 billion hole in the California state budget he signed just six weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced a proposal to raise the state sales tax by 1.5 cent.
In addition, he proposed implementing a brand new tax on services, such as those offered by veterinary clinics, auto repair and golfing fees. He also plans to implement a tax on producers that extract oil from California ground, and increase alcohol excise taxes by five cents a drink His tax package would bring $4.7 billion new revenue. Most of the rest of the budget shortfall would come in the form of cuts to education, prisons, public safety, Medi-Cal and social services.
The increase would bring Contra Costa County Sales Tax to 9.75%. I can’t believe that the State is in such a financial mess. I mean I have been hearing about this for a while but why can’t they fix this without making us pay more taxes on everything. This State should be able to bring in revenue without raising all of these taxes. When does it stop?
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November 9th, 2008 at 8:40 am
I don’t like it either, but I don’t see a choice here. If the economy gets rolling again, it may change.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
The budget reductions that the Governor has proposed for schools are draconian at best. His latest proposal would require our district to reduce the 2008-2009 budget by $10 million. The 2008-2009 budget has already been spent. This business of telling school districts how much money that they have to spend and then telling them they don’t get all the money that was promised after they have already spent the money, must stop. Our district is going to have reduce $17 million dollars over a two year period. Because the politicians in Sacramento can’t figure out how to produce a budget that provides adequately for our schools, our students suffer. The situation in Sacramento has never been worse. Term limits are not working. The two thirds majority to pass a State budget is not working. The Governor’s budget proposal is not working. When will our State’s politicians decide to truly make our kids a priority? I am sickened by the lack of foresight in our State.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Mr. Eberhart ,I was wondering how California ranks in per capita spending per student versus other states? I was also wondering what your thoughts are on what should be spent to ensure academic success?
November 9th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hello John,
I believe that California ranks about 46th in the nation in per pupil spending. It is not all about money, but as a start I think that California should be spending at least the national average in per pupil spending. I think we can make a good argument that California has an above average cost to do business. Energy costs more here, employee salaries are more here, etc.
There are also extreme differences in how much money is provided by the state of California from district to district. That has to do with laws that were passed years ago when each district use to set their own tax rates. Those districts like ours that were imposing a relatively low tax versus other districts that were charging much higher taxes. When the law went into affect, it essentially froze the tax rates that we were using at the time and we have been stuck there. So all districts had their tax rates frozen; some were high and some were low. There has been little effort to equalize the differences in revenue. So there are districts out there that get thousands of dollars per pupil more than MDUSD gets. I know that must sound incredibly hard to believe, but it is fact.
The education system in the State of California must be overhauled if we are ever going to stabilize school districts in the State of California.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Mr. Eberhart, thanks for responding. When people look at bond measures it might appear that alot of money is spent on schools. That obviously isn’t the case. I think people like you could help out the state voters alot in the descision making process. This type of information is rarely passed on to the voting public. Thanks again.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
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