Sacramento: Give Me My Money Back!

So, the California State Treasury has taken in unprecedented amounts of our money through heavy tax collection.

Thank you, President Trump! His tax reform package has allowed more business owners to hold onto their wealth, to invest in creating more jobs and expanding their operations, even in states hostile to business like California.

What should they do with all that ill-gotten gain? How about giving it back to its rightful owners?

That's what the Southern California News Group stated:

From the Southern California News Group:

With the state of California projecting a large budget surplus for the next fiscal year, lawmakers have serious choices to make.

It's a serious choice, but not a difficult one. They need to give us our money back!

Assuming continued economic growth, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office had projected surpluses of as much as $5-6 billion a year through 2021-22 back in November.

While it is a significant amount of money, California lawmakers have proven more than capable of blowing through large wads of cash.

That's all they do. They just steal from working Americans to keep the vast majority of the monies, while handing out crumbs to everyone else, so that they continue voting Democratic.

This is Boss Tweed Political Machinery at its worst, and we need to stand up to it.

Since fiscal year 2011-12, California’s general fund spending has ballooned from about $86 billion to $125 billion in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Governor Brown is spending 150% of the operating budget from his first year in office since he had run the state into the ground in the 1970s.

We can do better than this, Californians. Well, I know that voters who share my values are willing to do much better.

The record-breaking spending trend will continue with the next fiscal year, with Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal calling for just under $132 billion in General Fund spending.

I think it's time for Governor Brown to surrender his salary the same way the President Trump gives up his salary for different federal departments.

Such significant spending increases have come on the backs of increasingly burdened California taxpayers.

Brown has stressed to the Legislature the importance of fiscal discipline, given the likelihood of a recession in coming years. Along similar lines, the LAO has advised the Legislature to consider the many uncertainties ahead — including potential policy changes at the federal level with respect to things like health care — and to consider how much they’d like to prepare for the next recession.

There are already many changes coming down the pike against the state of California. Democratic lawmakers have spent more time spending money that we do not have to impress people who do not care, and in the process buying things which we simply do not need.

Covered California is going to crash and burn, and the Democrats in Sacramento cannot prevent the hemhorraging. Obamacare's main individual mandate is gone, and I doubt that lawmakers in Sacramento are going to tempt fate during an election year by forcing California residents to purchase health insurance.

They want to scuttle the Internet with their own version of net neutrality. Sad. They want to take everyone's guns away, except for union-backed law enforcement. Really bad. They also want to adopt the strict, onerous, and ultimately useless climate dictates of the Paris Climate Accords.

California wants to make all the progressive mistakes. This is just awful. Why can't we have leadership in the state capital which cares about the needs of American citizens?

Considering that the California Legislature best reflects the saying by satirist P.J. O’Rourke that “giving money and power to government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys,” these words of warning may very well fall on deaf ears.

It’s not surprising that politicians like Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, have taken word of a surplus to call for new obligations like expanding Medi-Cal and early education.

Yes indeed. What can we hope for, then? That the state legislature will crash and everyone will end up the emergency ward or the grave yard.

These things might sound nice, but when the next recession occurs, there probably won’t be enough money to prevent deep and dramatic cuts to services Californians deserve.

There will never be enough money for the rapacious Democratic lawmakers. They just take and spend, then borrow and tax with no regard for the best interests of California's citizens. We need leadership that will put the needs of Americans first, and we just don't have that right now.

It probably also isn’t lost on many California taxpayers that even with the massive jump in spending since 2011-12, big problems persist, including basic ones such as infrastructure and the perennial, worsening costs of government pensions.

Of course this comes as no surprise. No one in Sacramento wants to spend money allocated for necessary projects ... on those necessary projects. They want to fluff their own nests and assure their retirement in a board of supervisors elected office, since they will have all the money in the world and no one can stop them.

If state lawmakers aren’t going to make prudent decisions, the state would be better off providing some tax relief to the state’s overburdened taxpayers.

YES!

They can follow what Gov. George Deukmejian did in 1987 when he approved $1.1 billion in rebates to taxpayers. That would be a better use of the money then splurging it on new, unsustainable obligations.

Hello! Can I get an Amen?!

Of course, Deukmejian’s move was driven by the Gann Limit on state government spending — which, incidentally, California has gotten close to triggering again with continued spending growth.

Lawmakers should keep a close eye on the limit, especially since Brown last year tried some accounting tricks to avoid it. The LAO said that those efforts had violated “the spirit of Proposition 4.”

The Legislature could also consider other forms of tax relief, especially considering a recent LAO report suggesting that reducing business taxes would be far preferable to the “targeted tax incentives” the state currently uses, which reek of crony capitalism.

How about repealing the gas tax which should have never passed in the first place? That would be nice!

We suggest lawmakers, however unusually, resist the urge to blow through billions more than the state can afford and give taxpayers back some of their own money.

It's time for newspapers and everyday citizens to stop suggesting and start demanding. It's just that simple.