Steve Lopez Misleads on Tax Hike

John Seiler:

Today L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez makes it seem as if, as his headline puts it, “Saving the state would cost $260” each per year. Never mind that saving $100,000 pensions from cuts isn’t exactly “saving the state.”

He also writes that the cost would be “about $22.00 a month — to maintain a degree of civility and humanity or let it all go to hell.”

Except that if you have the typical family of four, that’s $88 a month. Meanwhile, your food bill has gone up more than $88 a month because the Federal Reserve Board keeps inflating the dollar. And your gas bill has gone up more than $88 a month.

So, you keep falling behind. Maybe you’ve been unemployed for several months in recent years because California’s anti-business and anti-jobs climate has destroyed jobs creation, with unemployment still at 12.4 percent, second highest in the nation.

Maybe your home was foreclosed. Maybe you skipped credit card payments, so you’re paying 30 percent interest on your debts.

So now, Steve Lopez and Gov. Brown and the Democrats and the “business oriented” Chamber of Commerce (really pro-government) want to soak you for another $88 a month. And not just for the next two years to get the state back on its fiscal feet (or at least to pay all those $100,000 pensions a little longer). They want that $88 a month for five years.

Here’s an idea: Instead of a secret ballot on tax increases, let’s have an open vote. Then, those who want tax increases, such as Steve Lopez, can openly say so. And they can show us their canceled checks for their payments.

The rest of us, who openly vote against tax increases, won’t be forced to pay anything.

You want to pay more taxes? Go ahead. Be my guest.

But as Samuel Goldman used to say, “Include me out.”