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California Reaps Google Windfall
theodp writes "The SF Chronicle reports that California took in a record $11.3B in personal income tax receipts in April, $4.3B more than it collected last April, attributing a significant chunk of the surprise windfall to Google employees. Fourteen of Google's top execs and directors sold $4.4B worth of stock last year, including founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, each of whom unloaded about $1.3B."
California ought to take this "windfall" and invest in the hospitals in southern California. The alarming rate at which they are closing is, well, alarming.
I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.
In other news Washington state was heard to mutter -- "Damn, if only we had state income tax!"
I keep hoping that the California software industry starts outpacing the entertainment industry. That way the politicians there will start introducing legislation backed by folks like Google and not folks like the RIAA.
Of course, a few billion dollars is chump change to the entertainment industry. There's a long way to go.
With the cost of living there $11 billion should be enough to build at least one medium sized hospital in southern California and staff it with illegal Mexican immigrants. People in California seem to live in some other country from those of us here in the midwest. A $200,000 home in Ohio would fetch over a million dollars there. Sheesh. How the hell can you guys afford to live there? Surely you're not making 5 times the income of a person in the midwest (say $50,000 median income here).
As a CA resident, this is good news. The state as a whole has been bitching about budget gaps and junk loans and a poor credit rating for the last 5 years, well since the end of the dot bomb days. This should either a) fix the problem in a big way or b) identify the real problem in an even bigger way.
'A' will happen if the legislature and Governor use the windfall responsibly and pay off huge amounts of existing loans (there's probably 20 billion or so still outstanding) cutting them by a 3rd or more and making them manageable debt instead of out-of-control debt.
'B' will happen if they simply add an additional 6 billion or more to the existing spending budget for next year, with the hopes that somehow this will happen again in the next year or two, essentially throwing away the opportunity to be responsible.
I'm hoping for A obviously and hoping that Arnold is the one to do it.. he preached fiscal responsibility all through his campaign, he better stand up and enforce it or get thrown out trying to, no matter what they say about him (Arnold won't give money to education, he wants to pay off those fat-cat loan companies instead, think about the children!).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
If you're from B.C. you'd know that the state of California (or I should say the people of) owes B.C. just over a billon, maybe more for electricity we had sold them. Is that going to be paid back? Good luck there, we have to try and collect it from bankrupt companies. It'd be nice to see that paid back, but no, Americans are just a bunch of bums...
Another thing that illegals do is cause my health insurance to go up. As you say, the illegals "eat for free", but the hospitals still has their bills to pay, so they raise the healthcare rates for regular care for all "legal" patients. This means that people who are paying my insurance company and then need to get healthcare will be paying the raised healthcare rates, and therefore, the insurance companies have to dole out larger sums of money. So my insurance company then raises the premiums, meaning my monthly bill goes up.
As an independent contractor, I go through Blue Cross Blue Shield. When I started I was paying $75 per month; five years later, for the exact same coverage, I'm now paying $175 per month!! I've never had an accident, broken a limb, or anything, and I don't smoke or drink alcohol, but I'm still getting slammed.
I should ditch my U.S. citizenship, become a Mexican citizen, and then illegally sneak across the border back into the U.S. Woohoo!
That way the politicians there will start introducing legislation backed by folks like Google and not folks like the RIAA.
Did you mean to say that lobbying for expansion of the scope of software patents is preferable to lobbying for expansion of the scope of copyrights?
Mono- D'oh!
In another *unrelated* news; Microsoft has lobbied for a "Law Against Defection" in Washington