County Supervisors play games with the transit tax
In a move that may leave taxpayers on the hook for additional printing and legal costs, the Los Angeles County Supervisors have voted 3–2 against consolidating a half-percent sales tax proposal into the November ballot.Los Angeles Times reports:
In a surprise move, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors denied a request today to place a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot to pay for up to $40 billion of road and mass transit improvements, including the so-called subway to the sea.
(snip)
Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder Dean Logan said the MTA must now pay up to $10 million for a special second ballot on election day or ask a court to force the measure onto the existing Nov. 4 ballot.
Supervisor Gloria Molina cast the deciding vote against the consolidation move in protest of Zev Yaroslavsky’s “back room deals.” The tax proposal may still appear on a separate ballot this November. A confident aide tells LA Observed:
Voters WILL still vote on the sales tax issue. It will just be a separate ballot that voters will get during the same election.
As mentioned earlier, the half-percent “transit tax,” combined with a one-percent increase proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would raise Los Angeles County’s sales tax rate to 9.75%.
Labels: don knabe, gloria molina, mike antonovich, transit tax, zev yaroslavsky
Posted by solomon @ 8/05/2008 03:52:00 PM
5 Comments:
Zev, this is your comeuppance. Take it like a man. Tony Villar, go back Iceland.
Ah, hell, wouldn't it just be that much easier to go to a full 10% sales tax. Think how easy all the math would be?
Then "chief economist" Wacko Walter could post here that we had a "100 percent tax" (and ONLY be off by one decimal point - like before).
At least this local tax would be used for something.
The statewide tax is a joke. A temporary bandage for a broken budget system, and in the most regressive form of taxation possible. Why is Arnie okay with this type of tax but not with any others?
At least a sales tax includes illegals too, who love to say "We pay taxes," but most of them avoid income taxes, or property taxes -- which is a good thing in general, since many who DID take out loans contributed to the current mortgage crisis by signing papers they didn't understand or translate, and if they'd finished 6th grade math at home, would have added up their incomes and expenses and known they could never afford it. So now we're bailing them out at a federal level, and with local programs pushed by Alarcon/ Reyes and ilk.
There are fewer than 400,000 homeowners in the whole city of millions, yet they're the ones getting taxed for everything from trash tax "for cops" (or NOT, if Smith is to be believed -- they can't even agree); and Hahn's property tax for gangs. Now that's the really regressive tax, since the strapped homeowners would pay for the gangbangers including many illegals in the large apt. projects -- who they're also subsidizing with other taxes to build the housing, welfare, education, free healthcare since they're unisured or sucking up MediCal, etc.
Today's LAT Opinion notes that LA's homeowners have been subsidizing the neighboring boutique cities like Santa Monica (we can add West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, even the revitalized Culver City and Burbank, Pasadena and Monrovia and Duarte) with this affordable housing and the traffic generated by workers living in LA but driving to those other cities which don't have the low-income tenants (nor the illegals).
The Op Ed asks these cities to "cooperate" with LA but has no suggestions as how we can make them - they're laughing at us, getting the benefit of business taxes and acting like LA ALONE among local cities has the sign out to "send us your huddled masses."
ONE way they must be forced to "cooperate" is getting as many of their workers OFF our roads and into mass transit as possible. (Along with students, elderly, tourists and many who prefer to relax and "leave the driving to Metro.") Sooner or later, Molina (who could use a walk to a metro stop) and the others will have to "cooperate," but in the meantime they keep costing us $$ and delays.
It's great that all these "power to the people" right-wingers don't trust the voters to make their own decision about taxes and would rather use gimmicks to keep the measure off the ballot.
Pffftt!
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