Regaining fiscal stability requires state leaders to impose fiscal discipline, implement policies that have a track record of being both affordable and effective, and recognize excessive spending comes with high costs. Given California’s dire fiscal state, the time to start is now.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a nearly 9% increase in total state spending for the upcoming fiscal year – that’s a $350 billion budget, more than $8,800 per Californian. Yet, for unions and progressive politicians, this enormous sum is too austere.
They are calling on the state to backfill federal funding cuts while at the same time closing the state’s budget deficits. If fully implemented, this agenda would increase total state spending for the coming fiscal year by 18% compared to the current fiscal year.
Of course, the unions and progressive politicians claim there is no reason to be scared by the roughly $30 billion in additional taxes this would require. The state can costlessly fund all their pet programs by simply “taxing the rich.”
Taxing the rich may be a great tagline but it’s bad policy based on the misnomer that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. To date, no one has provided an objective definition of “fair share’” but the top 1 percent of income earners, around 175,000 taxpayers, pay around half of the state’s total income tax revenue. The idea that they are paying less taxes than everyone else is simply false.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.
California needs budget restraint not double-digit spending increases
Wayne H Winegarden
Regaining fiscal stability requires state leaders to impose fiscal discipline, implement policies that have a track record of being both affordable and effective, and recognize excessive spending comes with high costs. Given California’s dire fiscal state, the time to start is now.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a nearly 9% increase in total state spending for the upcoming fiscal year – that’s a $350 billion budget, more than $8,800 per Californian. Yet, for unions and progressive politicians, this enormous sum is too austere.
They are calling on the state to backfill federal funding cuts while at the same time closing the state’s budget deficits. If fully implemented, this agenda would increase total state spending for the coming fiscal year by 18% compared to the current fiscal year.
Of course, the unions and progressive politicians claim there is no reason to be scared by the roughly $30 billion in additional taxes this would require. The state can costlessly fund all their pet programs by simply “taxing the rich.”
Taxing the rich may be a great tagline but it’s bad policy based on the misnomer that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. To date, no one has provided an objective definition of “fair share’” but the top 1 percent of income earners, around 175,000 taxpayers, pay around half of the state’s total income tax revenue. The idea that they are paying less taxes than everyone else is simply false.
Read the entire op-ed here.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.