BUDGET CRISIS: Arnold the Taxinator! – Alcohol Tax! Golf Tax! Drill-Baby-Drill Tax! Foreclosure Relief!

If you voted “Yes” on Prop 6 and Prop 9 and complain about the state’s financial situation and the measures proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, you need to wake up.  What did you think was going to happen when people like you keep voting “Yes” on measures that now require the state to allocate 10% of its budget on prison spending?  Thankfully, Prop 6 didn’t pass or we’d be in real trouble.  Oh wait, we ARE in real trouble!

We are not happy about any of these taxes either, but as we keep saying, until we stop caving to the Correctional Officers Union and the prison industry, we’ll keep running into these problems again and again.

If Arnold can’t get any of these proposals through the legislature, we would not blame him one bit if he gave us all the finger and took a job with President-Elect Barry O.

Arnold explains himself:

“In the six weeks since I signed our last budget, the mortgage crisis has deepened, unemployment has increased and the stock market has lost almost 20 percent of its value,” Schwarzenegger told a news conference. “We have drastic problems that require drastic and immediate action – we must stop the bleeding right now.”

Here’s the tax increases the Governor is Proposing:

Starting Jan 1, 2009, a three year 1 1/2 % sales tax hike for three years.  In three years the rate will return to 5%.  Yeah, right.  When Arnold proposed this last August, not one Republican legislator would go along with him.  Now that the election is over, he thinks that now the election is over, he thinks he has a better shot.

Starting March 1st, a permanent tax on amusement park admissions and sporting events.

Starting January 1, 2009 – The “nickel-a-drink-tax” an extra 5 cent tax on purchases on shots, a bottle or can of beer beer, and a glass of wine.

Starting Jan 1, 2009 an “oil severance tax”  – if you drill baby drill in California you gotta kick back 9.9% of the gross value to the state.

Starting Feb. 1, 2009, previously untaxed services like appliance repair, furniture repair, vehicle repair, golf and veterinarian services” will be taxed at the new “temporary” 6.5% rate.  We like how they tried to sneak “golf” in there between “vehicle repair” and “veterinarian services” hoping that nobody would notice.

An increase in the vehicle registration fee!  HEY! didn’t Arnold get elected the first time by cutting this fee?  Times have changed…starting February 1, 2009 the Gov. wants to increase it by $12.

Spending Cuts, Parole Reform, Foreclosure Relief

• $4.5 billion in school spending cuts, $2.5 billion from elementary and high schools.
• Gradual increase in unemployment insurance rates charged to employers, lowering benefits to recipients, and more stringent eligibility requirements.
• Speeding up public work projects to jumpstart jobs.   Hospital construction was specifically mentioned.
• State payments to elderly blind and disabled cut to federal minimums.  Welfare and Medi-Cal cutbacks. OUCH.
• a “reform” of parole process to ease prison overcrowding.  Interesting! Especially in light of the failure of Prop. 5 and the passage of Prop. 9!
• Arnold gets on the Obama train with a 90-day stay of foreclosures applicable to lenders who are not working with borrowers to stay in their homes.

Stay tuned to see how much of this gets through the legislature.