Hi. Feel free to tune out, because I know a lot of readers don’t live in LA. If you do, however, you probably already know that ANOTHER sales tax increase goes into effect today, July 1. We spoke here (somewhat jokingly since it was on April Fool’s Day) about the previous tax increases. A second hike hits today, with another half percent added on, making the total sales tax at least 9.75% in many areas.
Dang, that’s high. Way robbery.
Some cities, like Pico Rivera and South Gate, are now sitting at a whopping 10.75% sales tax. This all comes at an “interesting” time, when California politicians have (supposedly) been pulling all-nighters in order to fix the budget mess. The Governator and other legislators have been butting heads about proposed cuts. If they can’t find a way to fix the budget defecit, they’ll be forced to start issuing IOUs.
It’s kinda weird. I think a lot of Californians have become numb to the whole “sky is falling” gloom and doom predictions for the budget. They’ve been crying wolf like this forever, so I think this kind of news has lost its zing for a lot of people. But word is that this time its rather serious.
I think I’m going to move to Oregon.
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July 1st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
They’re doing everything they can to raise money. They sent me a threatening letter a week or two ago about renewing my expired car insurance. Thing is, I live in Illinois, and they sent it directly to my Illinois address!
I do worry about this. My understanding is that states are not allowed to declare bankruptcy, but there is no legal means for anyone to get back money they loaned the government. So, when California goes bankrupt, and stops paying thier debt, no one will be willing to loan money to the government, the currency will become devalued, and the economy will get even worse than it is now, because all those bond measures were passed over all those years, without anyone realizing that they were loans.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
@holly - yeah, I’m a little nervous about this. It seems like the average person doesn’t care at all about it, because they’ve been inundated with news over the past couple years about how California is going down the tubes. So they’ve become sorta numb to it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:58 am
I said “insurance” but I meant “registration.” Oops.
@bryan- I know what you mean. Out here in the Midwest there’s a sentiment of “That’s what they get” because California does have a lot of social programs that they can’t afford, but they refuse to cut them. I remember every election they had some bond measure on the ballot to pay for things like schools and road maintenance, and they always passed because they were for things we needed. But isn’t that like buying groceries with a credit card? They’ve dug such a deep hole, it’s going to be difficult to get out. What ever happened to all that bailout money? I know that some amount of that however many billion dollars went to the states.