LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik was at it again Monday, ranting against the Schwarzenegger administration and supporting California Assembly Democrats’ call for higher marginal tax rates, with 10% on incomes from $285k to $570k and 11% on income above that.

We noted last week that Hiltzik and his compadres in the Democratic party have managed to overlook one tiny solution to getting the budget into balance: cutting spending. But that reveals their true colors: fiscal responsibility is not the goal; funding all their existing programs — which they created during their spending binge of the late 1990s, when they increased spending 5% to 10% per year, from $86b in 1994-95 to $174b in 2004-05 — is what this is all about.

Hiltzik fails to mention that the new rates will give California the highest marginal rates in the county (tied with Montana, which has no sales tax — California sales tax is as high as 8.25%). Somehow this is not supposed to affect taxpayer behavior.

To make matters worse, they want to spend the new revenue before they get it. Perhaps they should take a look at the state’s poor revenue forecasting before taking their projections to the bank.

Hiltzik concludes by promoting the ‘fairness’ of the higher tax rates. He writes, “One oft-overlooked point in the tax debate is the salutary effect on the body politic of spreading sacrifice widely.” Good point. For the last year for which we could find data at the Franchise Tax Board’s lousy website, 1999, the middle class and above paid 92% of California income tax ($30.6b of $33.1b):

Our problem with Hiltzik, Nunez, and their allies is not so much the tax per se as the attitude it displays. They refuse to accept that their decade at the trough is over. They should deal with the new limitations and prioritize their spending to fit within current revenue. They won’t — Nunez last week proposed issuing bonds to pay for additional current expenditure!

I’m waiting for their announcement that they’re going to click their heels together three times so they can go back to 1995 again.

[our other posts on this proposal are here and here; Hiltzik here]

Technorati Tags: California, LA Times, Los Angeles Times, media, politics, taxes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 at 8:00 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under California Schemin', LA Times' Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, Media, Your Tax Dollars In Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.