Quote:
Originally Posted by ozone
travis bickle thanks for clearly illustrating the problem.
The only part I disagree with is your contention that revenues for local governments are at all time highs. That's just not true. Local governments are now forced to pay 100% for things that were either paid for entirely or in part by state and federal money. Also the costs for everything has gone up. The Feds are spending more money than ever before -on a war that has lasted longer than World War II and cannot be won, and even if we did "win" most people are unsure of exactly what we would have won. So in one regard I agree with you that we have a spending problem.
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Oh ozone, you'd been doing so well too. You almost made it for weeks before taking a "cheap" and ignorant shot at this president and our valiant battle against fascism. I will refrain from addressing those issues as that is not what we (well, at least some of us) are here for. But it must be a strain to have hatred of one person be such a powerful influence in one's life. Pity.
Also - we were talking about Prop. 13. Strictly a
state revenue issue completely unrelated to Federal spending so let's first separate federal funds from local funds. What the defense department spends on global issues has little to do with providing services at the local level. Even at the Federal level, according to the Tax Foundation, corporate taxes are at 2.3% of GDP for 2005 - the last year for which detailed figures are available. This is an all-time high. For 2006, the trend is up. Individual tax revenues are up 11.2 percent in the first seven months of FY 2006 over the same period in FY 2005, which in turn was a year when revenues surged 14.6%. Revenues are back up to nearly 18% of GDP and growing. So far this year, According to the Treasury Department, tax revenues total $1.505 trillion, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year. That figure includes $383.6 billion collected in April, the largest monthly tax collection on record.
Again, as this was in response to a comment re. Prop. 13 - a
State revenue issue. At the
state level, revenues climbed by 8% in 2004 and nearly 9% in 2005, according to the Census Bureau. For 2006 - the trend is again up.
According to the Franchise Tax Board - California took in $11.3 billion in personal income tax payments this April (just one month), an amount larger than the $10.5 billion the state received in April 2001 at the height of the high-tech stock market boom. Again - an all time high.
As the housing crises worsens, revenues will drop at the local level and this will cause funding problems. I expect we'll be hearing a great deal of whining about service cuts in the near future. In a city like Chula Vista (mid-size city - closing in on 200k), 80% of revenue goes to wards salaries and pensions (according to David Garcia - Chula Vista City Manager). I wonder what it is for Sacramento? But chew on that a while and ask yourselves if you're getting value. I would suggest this has far more to do with service cuts than federal spending in a time of war.
This is just what I got from our political/financial division in the last ten minutes. I'm sure I could get a far more detailed report if necessary. But it wouldn't change the results one iota.
Government revenues, at every level, are at all-time highs. The problem is spending, not revenues.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program:
Thanks for the kind words re. relocation costs.