California Taxes Everything

by: Onan Coca
The people and politicians in California still haven’t figured things out. Honestly, it's likely they never will.
There are some folks in California who think that "discriminatory non-profit groups" shouldn't be able to get tax exempt status. What discriminatory groups you ask? They want to strip non-profit, tax exempt status from groups like Little League Baseball, the Boy Scouts of America, Future Farmers of America, and about twenty other such youth centered organizations.
The problem is that California is sick. It’s got a terrible disease that keeps it from ever being in the black financially – it’s called “tax and spend-itis.” I know, it’s not the catchiest name, but it serves its purpose. California is the largest state in the nation -- in fact, California is so large if it were a country it would be the 9^th largest in the world.

However, it has also been run almost exclusively by Democrats since 1970. In 40 years of almost continuous Democrat leadership, the state has run huge deficits and is constantly bordering on insolvency – even though it has a wonderful climate, is the heart of the entertainment industry, attracts huge amounts of tourism, and was once home to many of our technology giants.
The problem in California isn’t that the people aren’t taxed enough, California taxes everything. No, the problem in California is out of control spending.
California consistently has some of the highest tax rates in the country, and yet they can’t get their financial house in order. They have the highest tax rate in the country on income of a million dollars or more, they have the highest sales tax rates in the country, and overall they rank pretty poorly on most tax lists.
They also happen to spend money they don’t have like it’s going out of style. Have you heard the story about their “big train debacle”?



California’s high speed rail scheme is a bigger waste of money than the “bridge to nowhere,” and yet it’s still full speed ahead on the project. The folks at Hot Air.com provide some background on just how big a waste this project actually is.

• CA governor wants environmental waivers for high-speed rail project
• WH: You bet we’re gung-ho on that boondoggle that’s tripled in cost before it’s begun!
• Great news: $98 billion estimate for California high-speed rail is lowball
• CA bullet train triples in price, adds 13 years to deployment schedule
• High-speed de-rail in California 

This is just one of many issues that California consistently gets wrong. They put out more money in welfare than any other state in the country, they spend more on community programs (and programs in general) than any other state, and they find more useless ways to spend their money than any other state in the Union.
California has to learn what every person figures out at some point… if you spend more money than you take in, you eventually run out of money. California hopes to avoid this by taxing their kid’s programs, but the kids just ain’t got that much cash.