In a few short weeks, California voters will receive their ballots for the November general election. In addition to the critical candidate races, there are countless ballot measures, most of which have a direct impact on citizens’ financial well-being.
Of the ten statewide ballot measures, three expose taxpayers to excessive debt. Propositions 2 and 4 are $10 billion each for statewide bonds and, even worse, Proposition 5 lowers the vote threshold for local bonds which are repaid by adding extra charges to property tax bills for decades.
At the local level, there are over 470 tax increases and bond measures on the ballot according to the California Taxpayers Association.
Even if a few of these proposals could be justified, taxpayers should approach all these measures with a default position of rejection.
Here’s why.
First, Californians are already overtaxed and they know it. Other states operate much more efficiently with much lower taxes and Californians are casting their votes with moving vans. California has the highest-in-the-nation income tax rate, the highest-in-the-nation state sales tax rate (even before all the local add-on taxes), the highest gas tax and, even with Prop. 13, we rank 19th out of 50 states in per capita property tax collections. This punishing tax burden has resulted in another number-one rating for California: The state more people have left than any other state.
Second, California has a corruption problem that rivals, if not exceeds, that of Illinois and New Jersey. According to the New York Times, “Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois.”
Third, California has unprecedented levels of government waste. While media reports of wasteful government spending appear daily, the two largest examples are California’s High-Speed Rail project, which is costing taxpayers billions with virtually no chance of completion, and the debacle of the $30 billion lost to fraud by the Employment Development Department.
Fourth, California’s elected leadership lacks basic competence. As just one example, the last two days of the legislative session devolved into utter chaos as important bills were ignored and special-interest legislation advanced. Debate on many of the most important proposals was limited to 30 seconds per speaker. And California politicians claim to be the ones to “protect democracy.”
Fifth, speaking of competency, there is a callous disregard for prioritizing spending. Many tax and bond proposals on the ballot claim to be for essential government services, such as public safety. But this is usually just a ploy to garner sympathy without revealing where the money taxpayers already provide is going.
Sixth, throughout California, there is an abject lack of accountability as to where money is spent. Demands for audits of government spending are met with resistance or ignored altogether. By the time audits are conducted, millions if not billions of dollars are already out the door. This was the case with the two previous examples of waste, High Speed Rail and the fraud associated with the Employment Development Department.
In a column for CalMatters, veteran journalist Dan Walters pointed to two instances of how agencies responsible for tracking government spending run into roadblocks in obtaining the necessary information to assess whether money is being spent properly. Both relate to homelessness.
Walters notes that state Auditor, Grant Parks, criticized the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, a creation of Governor Newsom for coordinating homelessness programs. But Park concluded that, “The state lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs, because (the council) has not consistently tracked and evaluated the state’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness.”
In the same vein, federal judge David O. Carter recently ordered L.A. homelessness officials to immediately produce the data needed for auditors looking into where hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars were spent. But foot-dragging L.A. officials told the judge that the information wouldn’t be available until October – even as millions continue to be spent.
California taxpayers should be outraged that, at both the state and local levels, they are being asked to approve tax and bond measures dealing with homelessness and affordable housing when those seeking our permission can’t even produce the data to justify the request. Sadly, that is usually the case with other ballot proposals as well.
And that is reason enough to reject most, if not all, tax and bond measures this November.
Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.