Sacramento Bee: California makes it easier to cut taxes than to raise them

[marmar]

Dan Walters: California makes it easier to cut taxes than to raise them

By Dan Walters
[e-mail] The Sacramento Bee

Published: Sunday, May. 16, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 3A


One of the major factors in California's perpetual budget crisis is this: Enormous fiscal policy decisions with decades-long impacts may be made in the political climate of the moment by either legislators or voters. If they prove to be counterproductive, however, they're virtually impossible to retract.

Tax cuts are one obvious example of the dichotomy. By a simple majority vote, the Legislature can reduce any tax. To reverse that action, it must muster a two-thirds majority, thanks to one constitutional provision of Proposition 13, which voters enacted in 1978.

A real-world example involves several billion dollars in corporate tax breaks that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature enacted last year in a complex state budget deal – a deal that also included some new personal income tax, sales and auto taxes.

The latter tax increases are temporary and will begin to expire at the end of this year. But the corporate tax breaks are permanent unless the Legislature repeals them by a two-thirds vote.

Repeal may become an issue in this year's budget negotiations. So far, however, Republicans show no inclination to vote for it. Unions and other liberal groups are pushing a November ballot measure to close the loopholes. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/16/2753649/dan-walters-california-makes-it.html#ixzz0o5vLmq6a

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1. Let's call it

the curmudgeony gerontocracy minority.