Alex U.
10-4-2012
Inst. S. Knapp
English 1A
A Tax Hike For The Better or For The
Worse?
As we get closer to the November
ballot, Proposition 30 has become a big decision to Californians because time
is running out; however, voters have less than a month to decide whether to
vote yes or no on the measure. The proposition is described as the education
and public safety act which the education programs of K-12 and Higher Education
like community colleges will benefit from. This will guarantee on-going funds
for public safety as well for resources such as Police, Fire, Jailing, Courts,
Social Services, Water Safety, and Health Services. The actions taking effect
if this measure passes will be raising personal income taxes by a percentage of
1-3 towards the residents of our state who are making over 500k annually as a couple,
or over 250k as single taxpayers for a period of seven years. It also includes
increasing the sales tax by a quarter cent for all purchases inside the state
of California for the next four years. The estimated amount of money that will
be raised annually is about 5.4 billion dollars through 2012-13 and through
2016-17 with smaller amounts through 2011-12, 2017-18, and 2018-19. The revenues would be divided by 89% going
towards K-12, and 11% to higher education such as community colleges.
Furthermore, Governor Jerry Brown has been speaking and threatening the state
residents about the outcomes that would take effect if voters reject the
proposition which are trigger cuts of about 5 billion dollars on K-12 and
higher education. This is a challenging vote because many voters feel like the
Governor is giving them no choice by saying “it’s ether yes or will cut that
money from schools.” If this measure passes it will create some problems for
the high income families by having to pay more in their personal income taxes,
and as well to lower income families by paying more in sales tax all year
round. I believe the problem to our state budget is the mismanaging of our
state money due to the Politicians greed.
On the contrary, arguments against
this proposition are very common because of many negativisms that rely on the
approval of this measure. According to the Official Voter Guide of California,
they state that “Prop.30 allows the politicians to play a ‘shell game’ instead
of providing new funding for schools.” They also indicate that even the
California School Boards Association stated that “the governor’s initiative
does not provide new funding for schools.”
They claim that the politicians can
take existing funds from schools and use it for other debts they have, and then
use the new funds to backfill the existing funds they had withdrawn. In other
words after they collect the revenues from the proposition they will just fill
the hole that they already had dug. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers
Association, they indicated a quote from a featured article from The Wall
Street Journal stating that they revealed a secret Politicians are trying to
hide. They state “The dirty little secret is…new revenues are needed to
backfill the insolvent teachers’ pension fund.” By this situation taking action no new funds
will be added to the budget. Voters voting yes on this proposition are taking a
risk to this gamble the Governor has brought to us. There is no guarantee that
all the money being collected will actually get to the classrooms of our
schools.
Why doesn’t the government stop the
threats of taking money out on schools if his proposition doesn’t pass? I
believe because he is being selfish and phrasing himself as “it’s my way or the
highway”. He knows he can convince Californians to approve his measure by
announcing the money will go to schools when it won’t. Why doesn’t he threat to
take out the money on the bullet train approval which is far less more
important than our schools? Because he knows voters won’t really care about the
bullet train, and they will reject the proposition. According to the LA Times, the
cost for the bullet train project was estimated to be 98.5 billion dollars.
These 98.5 billion dollars could be used in many different education resources
instead of a train; for instance, by dividing that money into 30 schools each
school would receive about 3.2 billion dollars. That’s more than half of what
the trigger cuts are. There are many
other options of transportation, and much less of education. Voters should be
more aware of the way the money in our state is being managed. Politicians want
this measure to pass, so they can pocket some extra money for their out of
control spending!
We all know how dirty and corrupted
our politicians are, not to mention when Governor Brown announced the closure
of 70 state parks statewide. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers
Association, they state that after the announcement of the park’s disclosure,
there was a discovery that the Parks Department had been hiding 54 million dollars
behind them. Those 54 million dollars is a large portion of funds which could
have been used to keep those parks open, but since we have these selfish
politicians they can always try their best at overplaying the public by saying
what the public is expected wanting to hear. This makes me ask myself what else
have or in fact are hiding from us, and makes me not trust them with
proposition 30.
If this proposition passes the
wealthy people of our state would not be too happy with the IRS, because of all
the hard earned money they have to pay extra. Some of this money they have to
pay could be from overtime hours they spent on their job, and by giving it away
to the government won’t feel too good for them. I know if I was a millionaire I
would not like to pay more money than I already have been paying, and
especially if I know the money won’t even go towards the claimed destination.
This will cause argument wars between the taxpayer’s and the government
regarding their increase in taxes. Small businesses will also face some
negative outcomes if the proposition is approved. By the measure being approved
it will make the business owners to pay more in their income tax, and maybe
even close because of not enough profit that will be left after these increases
take action. This can also make employer’s lay off some employee’s, and that
will make unemployment rate rise. Unemployment rate in California is very high
in these times, and by the rate increasing it will cause more chaos. By the
sales tax going up as well they will have to lower the prices on certain items
to try to get customers, because people will be trying their best at
bargaining, and business owners want customers to choose their product.
This proposition shouldn’t be approved because
California is the state with the highest sales tax already. California has a
present rate of 7.25% while the state of Colorado has a 2.9%: This is almost a
4% difference. California also has the nation’s highest Welfare receivers, and
their income has been cut drastically from a single decade ago. This will
affect families receiving welfare because they don’t even get enough income to
be affording all their expenses, and by sales tax increasing it will cause them
to suffer more financial problems. Not only welfare receivers would be
affected, but the general public as well. There are a lot of people out there
who make enough money to barely make it day by day, and I am one of them. I am
a freshmen college student with a family like many others. I work two part time
jobs, go to school part time and I’ll say it is not easy affording everything,
and by raising sales tax it will cause an impact on me and others who have a
similar life style.
A quarter cent might not sound like a lot but
in the aftermath it adds up to everything you purchase in one year and that’s
just on top of the existing amount of sales tax. For example all the gas, food,
school supplies, clothes, diapers, wipes and all the other unlisted expenses.
That’s not listing bills like rent, insurance, phone line, utility’s and many
more. Most of us, and probably all as students don’t make over 250k a year, so
we don’t pay attention to the income tax raise, but the sales and use tax is
what we should focus on.
According to Official Voters Guide of Californiahttp://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/
According to Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Associationhttp://www.hjta.org/press-releases/pr-new-radio-spot-highlights-state-parks-scandal-what-else-are-they-keeping-you
According to LA Timeshttp://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/01/local/la-me-high-speed-rail-20111101
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