California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has finally lost his grip on reality…or at least he has finally proven to all of us what some have known for years.
Why do I say this? In response to those who are fighting back against his gas tax, he called them “free loaders” because, as he so brilliantly points out, “roads require money to fix”. While I can’t argue that last point, roads do, in fact, require money to be fixed, I can point out that my (and many other) arguments against his new tax have nothing to do with wanting the state to give me more things.
In fact, my main argument about this tax was that it unfairly targeted those who could least afford it. A single person living in California making $40K per year has, on average, 2600 dollars left in a year after bills and such…not including the cost of gas. The average California driver puts 13,000 miles per year on their car and that average car gets 20 mpg…meaning that average driver uses 650 gallons of gas per year. Average is $2.50 per gallon (I wish I lived somewhere with a station close to that average) meaning our average driver spends $1625 per year on gas. So…if you earn $40 K per year, you have about $1000 a year for all other things (savings, emergencies, etc…).
Now Jerry calls these people who will be forced to give up an average of $78 more dollars every year, free loaders. Almost 10% of this person’s remaining funds…gone…yet they are free loaders.
The other argument being that we already contribute a massive amount of tax…to “road repairs”…that are diverted to the general fund. How much is diverted? Only in the neighborhood of $1 billion. These funds are used for such functions as:
$100 million to convince people to walk or bike more. So far the success rate is an additional .1% of people who now bike places. Your $100 million was able to convince about 25K people that they should ride a bike now and then.
$57 million to parks and rec. A great cause, no argument there…but this tax was for funding road repair. $17 million for the Food and Agriculture department…are we fixing roads with produce?
My favorite is the $330 million to be diverted to shore up the funding for the high speed rail which is now at least 50% over budget and 7 years behind…
In all, about 30% of the new tax money specifically raised for road/infrastructure repairs, will go to something else.
That is the problem here. He pushed through a tax that hurts those that can least afford it in order to back his pet projects. Then, when challenged, he starts with the name calling.
I find it funny (not the ha ha kind) that he chose the term free loaders. Californians have the highest state sales tax, the highest top personal income tax rate (one of the highest overall as well), the fifth highest gas tax…though that will be number one with a bullet when this tax goes into effect, tenth highest property taxes…we pay through the nose every day and in every way.
The taxpayers are free loaders? 30% of the country’s persons who are on some sort of government assistance live in California…yet California has only 12% of the population. In fact, there are many programs with nifty abbreviations and acronyms (no, those aren’t the same thing…an acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word). How many programs, you ask?
SNAP, TANF, SSP, HFP, CHIP, AIM, LIHP, MCE, HCCI, CMSP, MISP, and SAWS…there may be more, but I stopped looking. The taxpayers in this state already bear an enormous burden and now we are free loaders?
Jerry’s newest budget calls for the removal of the Middle-Class scholarship program…obviously middle class Californians can take care of themselves…they have plenty of money, they’re middle-class. Really? What if I told you that in California a household of THREE PEOPLE is considered middle class if the total household income is $46,763.
Yes…that is all it takes. Three people living in California on $46K is middle-class. A single person making $40K in this state barely has anything left, imagine adding two more to that. Yep, let’s not help the working family that is doing everything they can to scrape by…but by all means raise the gas tax that will affect them disproportionately.
Hey Jerry, I bet the people don’t want a gas tax simply because they can’t afford it. What if you spent the copious amount of money you are already collecting on the things we need? What if we took that ridiculous $1 billion earmarked for the high speed rail and used that to assist the middle class with school? What if you allowed the people to vote on this?
Why doesn’t he want to allow the people to vote on this tax? Two reasons: First, it will fail miserably. Second, if it were to pass, it would be attached to a rider that demanded none of these funds can be put back into general fund, nor could they be used for anything other than road/infrastructure repair. We have learned our lessons (I hope).
California has a massive budget and has already sold bonds to fix the infrastructure. Problem is, they are paying back the bonds with bond funds (by sending them to the general fund as we discussed previously) and aren’t applying them to the necessary projects.
It is good to hear that people are fighting back. We can’t just sit back and accept more taxation and less control of the revenues created. Wait until you hear where the funds removed from the middle class scholarship program are headed…even the most liberal among you may balk at this one…
Above the Nonsense 