Tax Increases Won’t Solve Budget Problems
The Nov. 29 editorial calling for new taxes to balance the upcoming state budget is the kind of superficial analysis that has delivered this state to a position of near financial collapse and that is hindering our ability to chart a vibrant economic future for its citizens. To argue that taxes must be raised to support a more than 12% increase in state spending only validates the blatant mismanagement of state finances that delivered this mess to the doorstep of taxpayers in the first place.
Our budget crisis is reflective of preprogrammed spending increases that far outpace our revenue growth and far outpace any objective measure of rational spending growth. At 12%, state spending will outstrip growth of any combination of inflation, population and personal income, or any measure we know.
What’s more, no one has established that even those extra dollars are going to improve the priority spending needs of Californians. The fact of the matter is that taxpayers currently pay high levels of taxation and deserve quality, cost-effective public services but receive neither. Larry McCarthy
President, California
Taxpayers’ Assn.
Sacramento
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