PROPOSITION 172: HALF-CENT SALES TAX : The Goal Is More Spending, and Not All of It on Crime : No: This is a tax increase, and 95% of the revenue will be spent at the discretion of already bloated county governments.

Proposition 172 asks voters to permanently place in our Constitution the “temporary” half-cent sales tax increase that was supposed to die this year. Voters should defeat it so California’s economy can begin to climb out of this terrible recession, now three years long.

Advocates say Proposition 172 is “only” a half-cent sales tax. What they don’t tell you is that’s a $1.5-billion hit on our state economy; $175 taken from the average family each year. That means 37,500 fewer jobs, according to the governor’s chief economist, Phillip Romero.

The federal government just hit us with higher gasoline taxes. Soon, you’ll pay higher income taxes and more “sin” taxes, followed by a new payroll tax for health insurance. Several other November ballot measures would make it easier to raise property taxes and for state taxes to be increased every year when the budget is approved.

All this and more, plus Proposition 172, is on top of the $8 billion in higher taxes imposed by the state in 1991, which is still killing our economy. Don’t you really think you’re being taxed enough already?

In balancing its budget this year, the state took back $2.6 billion in property taxes, which it had allowed local government to use since Proposition 13, and gave it to the schools. Despite the recession, neither the state nor local governments will reduce spending. They insist on spending more. That’s why they are asking you to extend, forever, the half-cent sales tax that the state had promised would die.

To get you to vote yes, the Democratic legislators who wrote Proposition 172 worded it to fool you into believing that this tax would strictly be spent for crime-fighting. The ballot summary and title don’t even call it a tax increase.

Given the magnitude of our crime problem, we clearly don’t spend enough for public safety, But that’s because politicians are spending your taxes on social programs, health and welfare and more bureaucrats, instead of fulfilling the primary purpose of government--the protection of you, your family and your property. Proposition 172, however, does nothing to change that.

There’s absolutely no guarantee that this tax will result in more police protection, as promised. Local politicians can spend it to fit their own definition of “public safety.” But even if they give it all to police, they can simultaneously take away an equal amount from other tax sources.

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, a Proposition 172 supporter, has admitted this, and San Francisco officials have announced already that they intend to beef up welfare spending. Orange County has just approved its budget. It includes an anticipated $137 million from Proposition 172. And yes, supervisors promised to give it all to the sheriff and district attorney. But they also took away $119.6 million that would have gone to public safety from the general fund. That huge amount has been diverted to other programs.

Taxpayers up and down the state can expect similar duplicity from their local politicians. The sheriffs and police chiefs know this. But they are willing to be used as “point men” to urge passage, hoping they will be rewarded with some of the goodies. Certainly, they could make an ironclad case that they made the difference if Proposition 172 passes, since you’d never vote to increase your taxes to hire more paper-shufflers.

If Proposition 172 passes, county governments will receive 95% of the new revenue and reap a windfall. The remaining 5%, meanwhile, will be divided among all the cities, even though it’s the cities that spend most of their budgets on police protection. Conversely, if the measure fails, both counties and cities will lose no more than 2% of their budgets as a result of the state’s shifting of property taxes to our public schools.

Over the past three years, while California has been mired in a deep recession and lost more than 1 million jobs in the private sector, few of our local governments have cut back. Most, like the state government, have continued to add employees to their already bloated work forces.

Yet the amount of money that counties and cities will lose if Proposition 172 fails is so small that they wouldn’t even have to consider laying off a single paper-shuffler. That’s because our local governments in California, on the whole, are paying their employees a third more than private employees get for the same work. In fact, we lead the nation in public-sector salaries and in the excess wages paid over private employees. Moreover, our public-employee salaries grew more than twice as fast as those of workers in private industry over the past 10 years.

Widespread spending abuses have been uncovered in local governments up and down the state, running into untold millions: excessive travel and car allowances, entertaining, abuse of credit cards, county supervisors and city council member voting to give themselves plush benefits.

In sum, the facts show we are over-taxed and underserved. Far too much of our tax burden is used unwisely or worse. The answer is clearly not more taxes. Proposition 172 deserves a “no” vote.