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Old 03-24-2021, 05:31 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,628 posts, read 67,146,871 times
Reputation: 21164

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Excellent.

This windfall is expected to grow to $23B by the end of the year. This is due to tax revenue collected from the state's wealthiest residents, whose incomes soared during the pandemic.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics...250127509.html
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Old 03-24-2021, 05:48 PM
 
Location: On the water.
21,565 posts, read 16,072,372 times
Reputation: 19587
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
Excellent.

This windfall is expected to grow to $23B by the end of the year. This is due to tax revenue collected from the state's wealthiest residents, whose incomes soared during the pandemic.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics...250127509.html
But they all left. I read it on CityData. Must be true. The surplus is fake news ...
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Old 03-24-2021, 06:05 PM
 
2,208 posts, read 1,745,094 times
Reputation: 2649
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
Excellent.

This windfall is expected to grow to $23B by the end of the year. This is due to tax revenue collected from the state's wealthiest residents, whose incomes soared during the pandemic.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics...250127509.html
Plus, the ones moving in are paying more in income taxes and property taxes as they buy at the raising prices and the ones leaving, even though doing OK, are meaningless to the State as the State gets more income when they leave. The middle class is in effect being pushed out. Not uncommon anymore in any State.
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Old 03-25-2021, 12:27 PM
 
4 posts, read 3,412 times
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So, we can expect a reduction in our state income taxes then?

Should the surplus be returned to those who paid into it, or reserved for Newsom's pet projects to pay for more poor people to come lodge here and get free healthcare, no matter their 'status'?
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Old 03-25-2021, 01:37 PM
 
Location: In the heights
36,905 posts, read 38,810,969 times
Reputation: 20929
Good time to work on better electrical and transportation infrastructure.
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Old 03-25-2021, 04:56 PM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,063 posts, read 106,870,458 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Observers12 View Post
So, we can expect a reduction in our state income taxes then?

Should the surplus be returned to those who paid into it, or reserved for Newsom's pet projects to pay for more poor people to come lodge here and get free healthcare, no matter their 'status'?
Returned, are you serious? Fire season will be coming soon enough; CalFire could use some extra revenue, and yes, Crumbler is right; there's always infrastructure improvements that need to happen, not to mention the chronic pension shortfall...
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Old 03-25-2021, 06:17 PM
 
290 posts, read 286,472 times
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth View Post
Returned, are you serious? Fire season will be coming soon enough; CalFire could use some extra revenue, and yes, Crumbler is right; there's always infrastructure improvements that need to happen, not to mention the chronic pension shortfall...
I don’t think many who live here would raise serious, principled objections to increasing CalFire’s budget. Money isn’t the issue; spending it wisely and efficiently is. Back in January when this rosy revenue picture came to light, Newsom proposed an extra $191 million for 43 helicopters and an unstated number of new hires. It would be prudent to see if CalFire can actually get the copters delivered and the new recruits hired and trained before giving them anything beyond that.

As for pension shortfalls, that is one of the main reasons that Republicans gave when opposing the most recent $1.9 trillion relief bill. One could have a mighty long and heated argument over the proposition that CA sends more money to the federal government than it gets back (definitional issues are a b**** in that context) and therefore this is just a redress of that injustice. But as long as states have sovereign authority over their budgets I fail to see why states that have fully or nearly fully-funded public pension plans should send money to states that don’t. And from a Californian’s perspective, the idea that certain “essential” workers, mostly government employees, will be eligible for up to $25,000 as a pay bonus will be a difficult pill to swallow for a lot of folks who have also dealt with the pandemic and its effects (illnesses, school closures, bankrupt small businesses, etc) but who aren’t so fortunately situated.

As for the tax cut argument, that’s not possible, at least not with funds from the most recent “Covid relief” bill. The feds have inserted a provision that prevents the funds from being used to reduce taxes directly or indirectly. There is some debate over whether that’s consitutional. Perhaps someone with expertise in that area could enlighten us.

Last edited by tifoso; 03-25-2021 at 06:36 PM.. Reason: Typo
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Old 03-26-2021, 08:44 AM
 
Location: In the heights
36,905 posts, read 38,810,969 times
Reputation: 20929
Quote:
Originally Posted by tifoso View Post
I don’t think many who live here would raise serious, principled objections to increasing CalFire’s budget. Money isn’t the issue; spending it wisely and efficiently is. Back in January when this rosy revenue picture came to light, Newsom proposed an extra $191 million for 43 helicopters and an unstated number of new hires. It would be prudent to see if CalFire can actually get the copters delivered and the new recruits hired and trained before giving them anything beyond that.

As for pension shortfalls, that is one of the main reasons that Republicans gave when opposing the most recent $1.9 trillion relief bill. One could have a mighty long and heated argument over the proposition that CA sends more money to the federal government than it gets back (definitional issues are a b**** in that context) and therefore this is just a redress of that injustice. But as long as states have sovereign authority over their budgets I fail to see why states that have fully or nearly fully-funded public pension plans should send money to states that don’t. And from a Californian’s perspective, the idea that certain “essential” workers, mostly government employees, will be eligible for up to $25,000 as a pay bonus will be a difficult pill to swallow for a lot of folks who have also dealt with the pandemic and its effects (illnesses, school closures, bankrupt small businesses, etc) but who aren’t so fortunately situated.

As for the tax cut argument, that’s not possible, at least not with funds from the most recent “Covid relief” bill. The feds have inserted a provision that prevents the funds from being used to reduce taxes directly or indirectly. There is some debate over whether that’s consitutional. Perhaps someone with expertise in that area could enlighten us.

I think auditing budgets and general oversight for agencies is important, though there is the difficulty of balancing that with the time sensitivity of things as fire seasons seem to come about annually, procurement and training takes a while, and $191 million is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the many billions just last year's fires alone purportedly cost. It's not an easy balancing act, and it certainly doesn't mean there shouldn't be scrutiny, but it's also prudent to act quickly while doing so.


Electrical infrastructure improvements can be part of the solution to both prevent and mitigate some of the issues born out of these fires. There was a lot of bellyaching over the cost of things like burying long distance transmission lines, but those apparently high costs look a lot more reasonable in light of both the fires caused be these lines and the disruptions and economic cost of disruptions in preemptive curtailment of electricity transmission. There's also the ability these days to store grid power for local use in case of these disruptions and to better meet peak demand and even some degree of local generation given CA's favorable solar insolation.


As for pensions and debts in general, yea, I think targeting debt that has a particularly high interest rate makes sense. I think any spending in line with reducing liabilities in the very direct sense or in the more indirect fire and electrical disruption risks makes sense. I am curious about what economic modeling is done for these and what public access to those models are. Basically, moving towards a more virtuous cycle for the state's and its people's finances can be good.

Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-26-2021 at 09:13 AM..
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Old 03-26-2021, 09:53 AM
mlb
 
Location: North Monterey County
4,971 posts, read 4,422,662 times
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Not an article you would see in the Red State we moved from 2 years ago.

I think we made the right choice.
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Old 03-26-2021, 12:19 PM
 
Location: San Diego, CA
2,986 posts, read 1,660,748 times
Reputation: 3361
Quote:
Originally Posted by tifoso View Post
I don’t think many who live here would raise serious, principled objections to increasing CalFire’s budget. Money isn’t the issue; spending it wisely and efficiently is.
Yeah I'd have no problem not getting money back if I thought they were going to use that surplus wisely. But they won't.
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