On The Backs Of The Poor

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh*t. Our lovely Governator is proposing an immediate "temporary" one cent hike in one of the most regressive taxes known to man, the sales tax.   And this is right after demanding that state workers earn the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour in a state where the cost of gas is still well over $4 a gallon and Los Angeles is intent on removing the dollar value menu from poor neighborhoods.  Because no food at all is better than Latinos being fat, isn't it?

Why are poor people and those who the governor intends to make poor, expected to bail out the economy of a state that has so many millionaires?  Why can't the rich pay a little more in taxes on the exorbitant amounts of money that they spend on vacations, expensive cars they don't know how to drive and eating at restaurants featuring edibles that aren't really food?  Why are the people at the bottom of the economic ladder expected to bear the brunt of the state's fiscal mismanagement and political grandstanding by having their benefits cut to the bone and then adding insult to injury by taking what little money they have go to support prisons and corporations instead of being funneled back into programs to help them make everyone's lives better?  Things like real education for children, public transportation and rebuilding the infrastructure.

Democrats have been open about their desire for higher taxes to help solve the deficit, though the sales tax is by no means their first choice. The Democratic budget proposal includes $9 billion in new taxes, but they are aimed mostly at corporations and the wealthy. Sales tax increases, by contrast, tend to hit lower- and middle-income residents harder because they spend a bigger share of their income on taxable sales.

One political analyst said the governor should explain his tax plan to the public, rather than having it leak to the media.

"This is Mr. Salesman, the guy who could sell anything," said Tony Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book which analyzes legislative races. "If he's going to sell his party on a sales tax, and the Democrats who view it as regressive, he ought to lay it out before the people."

Nope that's called honesty with a dash of cojones and it isn't something that politicians are known for.   Requiring a two thirds majority to pass a state budget when all the Republicans are interested in are playing games with people's lives and pretending that they have the people's best interests at heart has not worked for the people of California for many years.  Every July we go through the same thing and meanwhile the state is falling down around our ears.

Eventually, like when the state isn't considered a player in the world economy and only the movie stars have money to spend on purchases that aren't required for daily survival, things are going to have to change.  Unfortunately, it's going to be too late for the majority of Californians.  They will have already moved to Mexico in order to have a better quality of life.

BBB