Unfortunately, here in California, union membership is mandated for some public jobs. Sure, there’s a byzantine way to “opt-out” but it still costs the employee. There is no “free assembly” in California’s public-sector unions. Essentially, it’s a money-funneling for the California Democratic Party using taxpayer dollars. Is it surprising in the least that the two biggest spenders in California politics are two public-sector unions? It it any surprise that they give nearly all their political contributions to the party that holds a nearly 2-to-1 majority in BOTH Houses of the California Legislature and who hold EVERY major statewide office?

1. California Teachers Association (CTA)
2. California State Council of Service Employees (SEIU)

CHART: http://www.twitpic.com/75tc0v/full

I personally belong to two trade unions–by my own free choice. Membership is not forced on me. If the union no longer meets my needs or too often supports positions with which I do not agree, I will drop my membership and stop paying dues–again, by my own free choice.

Bernie Sanders is a socialist and if not, a communist. So are you a fan of socialism? Communism? Which “ism” are you for? Is it you opinion that the only good wealthy people are all democrats and that only wealthy republicans are evil and greedy? Is it your opinion that school teachers, fire fighters, police officers and government bureaucrats are the most productive citizens and if so, what do they produce?

SC, I do not argue with your numbers about how much of the overall tax revenue is coming from the top 1%-5% of income earners, but I think you should also realize that the top income earners are receiving an even greater share of the income being produced. My position is clear, we need to contain gov spending, BIGTIME, before we start looking at raising taxes on anyone-including the top 1%-5%. When virtually every gov employee has a $100K or more overall compensation deal-including janitors, parking lot attendants, secretaries and unskilled cop/ff/prison guard jobs, then we have big-no HUGE- expense problems.

See, I grew up a hardcore democrat, hardcore, and also a BIG private sector union supporter. I still support private unions b/c if they over reach, like the UAW have, they lose jobs and lose power. There were 1.5 million UAW members 20 years ago, today it is only 400K, because those people simply cost too much at $100K per job for auto assembly. They have had terrible leadership and I wish they could see that. Now, the public sector unions are a whole new ball game. The Dems USED to watch out for the small guy-today they throw the small guy-and everyone else- under the bus to please a small segment of the population, the ones who bankroll them, the public unions. The overall health of the state, it’s citizens and the little guy mean nothing to them, only how to toss regressive taxes on the little guy so we can pay janitors $100K+ comp packages.

Now every gov yahoo on this and other sites think I am some right wing nut case b/c I stand up to the public union abuses and their dirtbag enablers the state Dems.

The sales tax rate should be, at most, 6%, at most. 4%-5% would be ideal.

Eventually it will be 10% and then eventually even 10% will not be enough….caught a dork school admin on the news today claiming education gets less $$$ today than it did 20 years ago (it definitely does not) and that the education system is going to “crash” if Clowns sales tax is not approved…..errr……get ready for a crash Bubba, because the pension sales tax is DOA

A fair and simple 4% flat tax should be implemented with very few exemptions on the first $550,000 of income and 10% for incomes in excess of $550,000 up to 1.5 million dollars. Incomes in excess of that amount should be taxed at 20%. Small businesses with more than say 10 employees should be exempted from the 10% & 20% flat tax rates.

California should also impose an additional wealth tax of say 15% on those who bank more than 1.2 million dollars per year after taxes.

The math is simple and straight forward. If you make $50K/year, you tax bill is $2000. If you make $200K/year, you tax bill is $8000. If you make $551,000/year you tax bill is $55,100. If you make $1.55 million/year, your tax bill is $310,000. If you make $1.6 million/year, your tax bill is $560,000 and so forth.

By my simple formula, a Hollywood scum bucket making $20 million/year would owe $7 million in taxes. It all seems fair to me. Comments??

Meanwhile, most of the money for California’s General Fund comes from Personal Income Taxes (PIT). PIT revenues provide 63% of General Fund revenues while sales taxes provide just 21%.
http://www.twitpic.com/ah3i1m/full

However, because California’s PIT taxes are so very income-progressive, the top 2-3% of taxpayers contribute roughly half (50%) of the entire PIT tax bill. This means that the population roughly the size of Riverside, CA generates about a third (31%) of the General Fund, not including their sales tax contributions. These few taxpayers pay more in income tax than the entire sales tax generates from all Californians. Meanwhile, the majority of Californian taxpayers and voters contribute little of California’s income tax revenue.

Despite already having the nation’s 2nd and 4th highest state income tax rates, Governor Brown and his cronies want to burden California with the nation’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th highest state income tax rates via Proposition 30.
http://www.twitpic.com/a68drw/full

Proposition 30 is bad public policy and horrible tax policy. You can read more about it here.
http://soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2012/07/california-proposition-30-governor.html