Political establishment fails to take responsibility.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation has released its annual Follow the Money report, once again exposing the failure of California’s public officials to effectively manage the tax dollars sent in by state residents now confronting the annual task of preparing their tax returns.
Among the costliest bungles cited in the report was the state’s payment of between $11 billion and as much as $30 billion in unemployment benefits to scammers, including 20,000 criminals currently incarcerated.
Additional misspending includes costly, no-bid state contracts for face masks, and an unauthorized $35 million get-out-the-vote contract awarded by then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla to a partisan consulting firm associated with the Biden campaign.
“California’s powers-that-be reacted to COVID-19 the same way they always react to a crisis — by wildly spending taxpayer money without any restraint,” said Jon Coupal, Chairman of HJTF. “Much of this spending did nothing to keep people safe from the pandemic, but friends of people in high places will come out of this crisis richer, and taxpayers will be expected to foot the bill.”
The Follow the Money report can be found online at HJTA.org by clicking on the “Resources” tab and then on “Studies and Reports.”
Jon Coupal is the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA). HJTA, with offices in both Los Angeles and Sacramento, is the largest taxpayers association in California with a membership of over 200,000. Founded by the late Howard Jarvis, the author of Proposition 13, HJTA’s name is synonymous with tax relief and the uncompromising defense of the California homeowner.