There is a legitimate debate to be had about whether the wealthiest Californians should pay more in taxes. But Proposition 40 is the wrong tax, structured the wrong way, and would only make California’s budget problems worse.
Even voters who believe billionaires should contribute more should reject a measure that is so poorly drafted. Proposition 40 is ballot-box budgeting at its worst: a one-time tax that would raise tens of billions of dollars ostensibly for healthcare — but has insufficient guardrails to ensure the funds are spent to actually address Californians’ most pressing healthcare needs.
Instead, the funds could go to any interest group, including health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and for-profit hospitals. These sectors all play an important role in our healthcare system, but we should not allocate precious taxpayer dollars to subsidize these for-profit corporations.
Equally problematic: Proposition 40’s proponents excluded other key state priorities like education, public safety, housing, wildfire prevention and more. California is confronting persistent deficits, struggling public schools, a housing and homelessness crisis, rising costs for families, and growing demands for wildfire prevention, public safety and other essential services. Yet Proposition 40 provides little to nothing for these priorities.
Supporters describe Proposition 40 as a one-time solution to an immediate crisis. Californians have heard that before. Proposition 30 was sold as a temporary tax increase in 2012. Voters later extended much of it through 2030. Once government programs become dependent on a revenue source, “temporary” taxes have a way of becoming permanent political expectations.
The reality is that one-time taxes create a fiscal cliff, which leads to new and additional taxes when the money runs out. Even worse, this measure would drive out some of our state’s most successful residents, taking jobs, economic benefits and billions in tax revenue with them.
And Proposition 40 would establish an especially dangerous precedent. If one interest group can write a tax measure, target a politically unpopular group and dedicate the proceeds to its preferred programs, others will follow.
That is no way to govern a state with an economy larger than most countries.
California can ask the wealthy to contribute more without embracing a measure this flawed. Proposition 40 is a temporary tax masquerading as a fiscal solution, a permanent precedent for ballot-box budgeting and the wrong answer to the very real problems facing California.
Vote no on Proposition 40.
The post Vote no on Prop. 40. It ignores education, housing and safety appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
