Happy tax day.
While the state's blue ribbon commission charged with overhauling California's volatile tax system missed today's deadline, you probably shouldn't.
Dan Walters writes: "The blue-ribbon commission was convened to reduce that volatility,
although its hearings have been forums for just about
every tax theory known to humankind.
"In fact, taxation – decreeing who pays and how much – is an entirely arbitrary process. While we try to
invest taxation with a moral dimension, it is inherently
amoral, as any history of tax policy quickly proves.
Every segment of society seeks to minimize its own
share of the tax burden and increase everyone else's portion, which is why the tax commission's efforts at rebalancing the system may be doomed.
"Ultimately, California's logic-deficient tax system is a perfect reflection of its
impenetrably dense politics."
Meanwhile, Fox News's Neil Cavuto will be in Sacramento to celebrate National Tea Bag Day, as will conservative commentator Michelle Malkin.
The AP's Beth Fouhy writes the story of how Jerry Brown's would-be competition for governor are trying to make an issue
out of his age.
"Steve Poizner, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire running for the
GOP nomination, recently released a tongue-in-cheek statement congratulating Brown on the 40th anniversary of his first election to public office.
"In April 1969, Poizner noted, "Nixon was the newly inaugurated President, John Lennon
and Yoko Ono were going strong, people were still using
carbon paper, an Apple was something you ate and the
Apollo mission had not yet landed on the moon."
"Garry South, a strategist for one of Brown's Democratic rivals, 41-year old San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, observed Brown's birthday last week with a message on his Facebook
page: 'Imagine being born when FDR was president!'
"Brown is quick to reject comparisons to Hillary Clinton,
whose presidential bid foundered last year after rival
Barack Obama framed her candidacy as a relic of the
past. 'Newsom is trying to make everyone think I'm Hillary, and he's Obama, but those analogies just don't work,' Brown said of his Democratic rival."
Hillary has better hair.
Meanwhile, the LAT's Willon and Zahinser say Antonio Villaraigosa is beginning to change his tone . "Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday laid out a second-term agenda
weighted heavily toward the creation of environmentally
friendly jobs
to rescue Los Angeles from its economic malaise but
warned of serious
pain ahead as the city digs out of a half-billion-dollar budget
shortfall.
"Delivering his fourth State of the City speech since
taking office,
Villaraigosa's remarks struck the tone of a Democratic candidate
for
governor, with scorching critiques of both Sacramento
lawmakers and
Washington conservatives."
"Facing what could be the largest cash flow problem
in state history, California officials are asking the federal government to back billions
of dollars in short-term loans the state must seek in July," writes Steve Wiegand in the Bee.
"'We're going to need cash-flow borrowing the likes of which California has never
seen, at a time when market and economic forces are
stacked against us,' said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for state Treasurer Bill Lockyer. 'That's a recipe for calamity.'
"While the state routinely borrows money at the start
of fiscal years on July 1 by issuing interest-bearing Revenue Anticipation Notes, or RANs, a combination
of factors have conspired to form a mountainous hurdle
this time around.
"Those factors include the sheer size of the amount
needed – at least $13 billion – the state's woeful credit rating and the generally sorry state
of the nation's financial markets.
"Precisely what kind of help it would be hasn't been decided. A spokesman for the House Financial
Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., confirmed that Lockyer had met with Frank in
late March, and that Frank was in the process of drafting
legislation designed to aid states and local governments
with problems similar to California's."
Meanwhile, perhaps hoping the state has to borrow even
more, "[l]abor groups will fight Proposition 1A, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's May 19 ballot measure that puts a cap on state spending and
boosts California's rainy-day reserve fund. But it remains to be seen whether
the opposition campaign will be much more than stern
news releases," writes the Chron's John Wildermuth.
"The 700,000-member California SEIU, the state's largest public employees union, has joined with the
California Faculty Association and the California Federation
of Teachers to battle Prop. 1A, the keystone of the governor's budget-reform package.
"But when it comes to how they'll do that, the unions are a bit short of details and,
at least so far, money.
"'We're going to be running a spirited campaign,' said Mike Roth, a consultant for the union effort. Asked what that
means in terms of cash, he said the campaign 'is not going to be talking about resources.'
"When a political campaign doesn't want to talk about money, it's usually because it doesn't have much. While the teachers' federation put $100,000 into the anti-Prop. 1A campaign Tuesday, other opponents have been slow
to reach for their checkbooks."
Hmm, we've heard SEIU called a lot of things, but rarely "short on cash." But we digress...
"On the other side, Budget Reform Now, Schwarzenegger's umbrella group for all six ballot measures, has collected
about $5 million. The California Teachers Association put another
$5 million into Prop. 1B, which guarantees schools $9.3 billion if it and 1A pass."
The No side raised a total of $299,000 yesterday from the California Federation of Teachers,California
Faculty Association and SEIU, as reported on ElectionTrack.
Meanwhile, the big checks roll in for the Yes on 1A campaign.
Carla Marinucci posts on the Chron's blog:
"Democratic state Attorney General Jerry Brown, standing Tuesday at the side of Republican Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, declared his support for the Republican governor's budget reform measures Props. 1A-1F on the May 19 special election ballot.
"The two state officials were surrounded by fire and
police chiefs from Alameda County at an Alameda fire
station for the announcement by the attorney general
and former two-term governor who is strongly considered likely to
run for a third gubernatorial term in the 2010 election.
"The move comes just days after Brown expressed what
was described in a Calbuzz interview as "tepid" support for 1A, and took no position at all on the rest of the ballot
measures, saying he hadn't yet read them.
"'If these don't pass, it's going to make the next governor's job that much tougher,' said Brown, who called Prop. 1A 'a crucial proposition ... because the state needs the
money and the state needs the spending cap.'"
Now why would Jerry care about that?
Syndicated columnist Thomas Elias writes that the doomsday scenarios given by political leaders about
the ballot measures show they're getting desperate.
"Every poll shows that the more voters learn about these
propositions, the taxes they mandate and the deceptive
nature of their official ballot arguments, the less
likely they are to vote yes on any of them — except 1F, which hits legislators financially when they are
late passing budgets.
"So it's no wonder the pols have turned to doomsday threats.
That may be the only way they can get voters' attention for a batch of seriously flawed propositions
that place new burdens on recession-wracked citizens while failing to provide any permanent
solutions to the state's long-running budget problems."
"Water rates will soar in Southern California but customers
won't have to conserve as much as initially feared, based on a plan approved yesterday by the Metropolitan
Water District," reports Mike Lee in the U-T.
"In one of its most anticipated meetings in years, the
board of the giant water wholesaler paved the way for
increasing its rates by more than 40 percent from September to 2011.
"The panel also found that water supplies are greater
than previously thought. Its reductions amount to a
13 percent decrease for the San Diego County Water Authority,
the local agency said, down from a worst-case scenario of 20 percent.
"The authority has other sources of water, so it will
likely impose a cut of only 8 percent to 10 percent for its customers – retail water districts that serve homeowners, businesses
and institutional clients across the county."
"A major new report profiling America's illegal immigrants estimates that 10 percent of California's work force is undocumented, while close to 14 percent of the state's schoolchildren have at least one parent in the country
illegally.
"This group of California K-12 kids is divided: Roughly two-thirds are U.S. citizens by birth and one-third are themselves illegal immigrants, according
to the report issued Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center
in Washington, D.C.
"The report marks the first time Pew – a leading nonpartisan research center – has attempted to use census survey data to quantify
this young population. Schools in California and many
other states do not make official counts of these children
or parents.
"'What is striking about this population is it is a population
made up of young families,' said Jeffrey Passel, Pew senior demographer and the
report's co-author."
Jake Henshaw reports that John Benoit's bid to get high-speed golf carts on the roads in Palm Desert is on hold -- for now. "Sen. John J. Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes, said his bill has run into
questions about the safety of allowing the so-called neighborhood
electric vehicles, which have maximum speeds of 25 mph, to travel on
streets with a 55 mph speed limit.'They
are having a hard time getting their arms around how
to do that,'
Benoit said of the Senate Transportation and Housing
Committee, which
now has jurisdiction over the bill."
And finally, from our First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
Files, "A day after the violent rescue of a U.S. ship captain
from Somali pirates,
a cable television channel on Monday said it will air a reality show
about the U.S. Navy's mission to stop piracy off the coast of Africa.
Producers and the Navy have been in talks for three
months about the show, which is titled "Pirate Hunters: USN" and is expected to air as a one-hour special in the fall on Spike TV."
Ooh, we just got that Wag the Dog feeling...
