Thoughtful answer. You see a few things you don't like (maybe accounting for 1% of the budget), ignore the rest (e.g. the road you're standing on), and feel you are in your good right to evade a necessary evil put in place to avoid the tragedy of the commons?
Are you really sure you're not a jerk?
You don't understand. I'm guessing that roughly 75-80% of our money is spent on something that nobody derives any considerable benefit from. Public services got cut first. Bullet trains, new buildings and facilities, huge projects with questionable issues (like digging tunnels under the Sacramento Delta to bring more water to Jerry's southern california friends), etc.
Its complete bullshit. Its pitchforks and torches time.
I don't have the luxury of spending money I don't have
Sure you do. It's called a loan. Lots of people get them. They finance all sorts of things, like homes, cars, college educations, etc. Most people with mortgages have a far worse ratio of debt to income than the federal government and pay much higher rates.
Since I'm an avid Lending Club investor, I'm getting a kick...
Yeah, the government taught us well how to spend money we dont have on things we dont need and cant afford. Rinse and repeat.
Californians elected the shitheads who brought about this situation, primarily by voting for people who promised to "reign in government". It is precisely THOSE people who are rigidly ideologically opposed to any government at all who fuck it up the most. If you want to rein in the spending, STOP VOTING FOR MORONS WHO'S ONLY GOAL IS TO FUCK IT UP *ON PURPOSE* SO THAT YOU SUPPORT THEM.
Who would these people be that we could vote for, yet aren't? As an independent voter, I'm only allowed to vote for independent candidates in the primary. The dems and republicans pick their own representatives for us to vote on, and they throw money behind the one they want to win, so thats not a choice.
Not to mention most people in california are just going to vote for the democrats in the legislature (yellow dog style) and once in a while we put a republican governor just to antagonize them when they aren't doing what we want. Then we cut the legs off the governor so they can't actually do anything.
So yep, its all our fault. Not sure there is any reasonable way to get other candidates into office.
Of course, you could fix this by setting a maximum amount anyone could spend on a run for office. Right now, its money talks.
It's hard to have sympathy for the state's plight. When the state announced they were going to close 70 state parks private individuals donated money in an attempt to keep some of those parks open.
Then it turned out that up to $54 million was squirrelled away, for still murky reasons, that should of gone to funding the parks.
Thats still being investigated, but there isn't any murkiness so far. The state prevented them from being paid for back pay and vacation time they didn't use, so they squirreled the money away and didn't get caught until they quietly started paying themselves extra from the slush fund. A million bucks says nobody goes to jail over this, and anyone that loses their job gets one working for some contractor with an extra zero on the end of their salary.
Now they're looking into trying to figure out what other departments have large slush funds.
And yes, that $54M would have gone a long way to avoiding any shutdowns or limitations. The funny part is how the parks department closed the most popular parks first. Extortion works that way.
I avoid paying anything to the state of California, whenever possible. They only waste the money on pork and stuff nobody needs.
They also apparently haven't been paying attention to how all of this is going to shake out. Two towns in California are going to get huge amazon warehouses, and those two towns are getting the balance of the sales tax revenue, and they're giving most of it back to Amazon.
So California, amazon and those two towns will spend millions to collect next to nothing.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
Really? Rated 'troll'?
LOL
I thought a troll was telling a falsehood intended to unnecessarily inflame people. I didn't realize you got that label when you told the truth. Are we employing state workers to moderate the forum these days?
So why would it make any difference if Amazon lowered their prices? California would still be getting its cut.
You haven't been doing your reading. California is getting almost nothing from this. The tax money is collected by the state, most of that is earmarked by law to go to the point of origination of the sale, which is two towns in california that have agreed to give almost all of the collected sales tax back to amazon in exchange for amazon building distribution centers in their towns and employing a lot of poor hispanic people who live in those towns.
We will however spend a ton of money collecting and redistributing those funds, as we've spent a ton of money extorting amazon to collect the sales tax, even though they have no legal profile in the state that would require collection.
So the genesis is:
- State too stupid to spend less than they take in
- State prefers to spend money on boondoggles and pork
- State looks for more money to spend
- Amazon doesn't collect sales tax, and legally doesn't have to
- State extorts amazon by threatening endless lawsuits if they don't capitulate
- California loses millions when Amazon yanks its affiliate program and the affiliates 'move' their business to other states
- Amazon and two smart california towns agree, and then structure it so amazon gets back all the money
- Workers in states surrounding california lose their jobs to people in the new california distribution centers, since amazons business is a zero sum game
The two towns in california win, because they get jobs. Its bad for amazon, because they'll lose some business that won't pay the tax. Its bad for the state, because they already spent more money than they're going to get, trying to get the money. Its bad for amazon workers in peripheral states.
In short, its the same result you get when any government entity tries to manipulate a situation to their advantage. Since most government workers aren't the cream of the crop, someone else with a better brain has their way with them, then the government entity declares victory (mission accomplished!) and moves on to the next sad target.
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money.
That is a TERRIBLE idea. We'd have massive statues of dicks and giant pudding-filled swimming pools. You can't trust this shit to the internet and you sure as hell can't trust the wisdom of mob-rule.
Those would be better than what we have today. Right now we have special interests plug away at what they want and they get it. Then there's no money for schools, roads, etc. Then we have to vote for more taxes to pay that.
So our current approach is a terrible idea. I was just digging into my work experience where we build Zero Based Budgets. Everything from headcount to projects is priced out and prioritized, and then we draw a zero base line at the point where we run out of money. Funded items need to be defunded, or funding needs to increase to get projects below the line to be done. Works like a charm when you need a budget increase or someone further up the food chain wants to cut spending and be told what will go as a result of the cuts. Pretty clean, and lots of visibility.
We already have a legislature that could put up a list of projects, then the public could zero the budgets on pork and bullshit projects, while supporting things we really want. When people vote to move the line, we agree to pay more for specific things we want done. When we get rid of the stupid spending and have money left over...tax cut time.
Isn't that what California does now? Prop 123 to pay for X and Prop 456 to pay for Y. Some outrageous percentage of their budget is tied up in these "feel good" mandates. The legislature wants to increase funding for teachers, but they first have to pay out to the "orphan kitten" fund. When someone attempts to repeal the mandate, they are villainized in TV ads, saying they want to feed the kittens, and the elderly, to alligators.
No, what they do now is spend most of the money on pork, and when people get pissed about not getting their roads fixed or schools funded, they float a referendum that lets us pay extra for the stuff that should be getting the money first.
Glad you mentioned kittens, it gives me an awesome opportunity to explain even more practically fraudulent spending. Four months ago, we adopted a dog. I went to the county animal shelter. Nice place, just built a few years ago for ~$25 million dollars. Has paw print embossed ceiling tiles, separate room for each cat with furniture, and of course due to legislature passed, had to be decorated with a million dollars worth of local art, most of which was fairly horrifying.
This new facility went quite well for a couple of months until they realized they didn't have the money to staff it, or even pay the electric bill. So they had a fund raiser and got enough money to keep the doors open, but had to cancel the free spay/neuter clinic due to lack of funds.
So the one thing that would reduce shelter demand long term? Lets cut that. Can we afford the facility we built, before we waste money on frilly crap? No. Could we have built a simpler facility twice as large, with twice the staff, with the free spay/neuter clinic intact and a lower build/operate cost? You betcha!
But the money was donated into little buckets that had to be spent on the earmarked items. This problem is thoroughly ingrained into california funding and politics. Schwarzenegger wanted to fix that problem, but the legislature buried him and when he asked the public via referendum for the power to override them, we said no. So I guess we like money wasted on dumb shit while there isn't any for the important stuff?
Anyone else catching the stupid that reigns in this state yet?
Oh yeah, and the shelter had 300 chihuahua's and 300 pit bulls in it. Four other dogs, one of which I did adopt. I know why there are a lot of those two types of dogs, but ehh...I don't think they're all going to get adopted...
I spend approximately $17,000 a year at Amazon. My state tax load would be a bit over $1500 per year.
Which qualifies it for a serious BFD in this household.
No biggie. There are usually 4-5 online companies with prices within a few percent of each other. I usually give amazon the nod because of their good customer service, return policy, fast shipping and competitive prices. Add 9% to those prices and I'm buying from one of the other 3-4 who don't.
Easy. Amazon has no presence in california, so they never had to collect sales tax. California passed legislation that made affiliates (people who list amazon products on their personal site, often with reviews and 'how-to's and received payment for a click through) were employees, so amazon had employees in the state and had to collect tax.
So amazon 'fired' all of their affiliates, many of which set up fronts in Oregon or other states and continued as before, but many also threw in the towel, costing california jobs and job income.
Then the state said they'd pass endless streams of legislation until amazon bowed. We've spent millions on this crap.
So amazon got two towns to agree to hand over most of the sales tax revenue which will come their way, and is building warehouses there. Sales tax revenue goes mostly to the physical place where the transaction occurred, which is the warehouse town in this instance. So after spending millions and tying up legislature time pursuing the matter, the state will receive maybe 20-30mil of that 300-something discussed in the original article. At least the rest will go to jobs in those two towns, mostly poor hispanic people.
But then quite a few of the people in surrounding states that work at warehouses that amazon only set up to ship quickly into california will lose their jobs. Won't be needed anymore.
So some benefit to california, at the cost of its neighbors. Nearly zero budget relief. This is what I've come to expect from our state political machine...a lot of noise, a lot of movement...but nothing much happens at the end.
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent.
Sorry but this is a bit of a cop-out.
We all want the money to be spent well. We all want to have say in how it's used. But the reality is that sometimes the money is going to be spent on things we don't like (e.g. Iraq or TSA). And people who do like these things don't want money going to, say, ACORN or Planned Parenthood (I'm making some generalizations here). And someone who lives in Northern California might not like that $200 of his taxes are going towards widening a freeway in San Diego. But this is how government (even an efficient and trim one, which CA is not) works.
If you want to fix government and how it spends your money, get involved. Hold your representatives accountable for how they vote (not what they say in speeches). Don't use the fact that government does many things (some you like, some you don't) as an excuse to skip taxes. Despite what some politicians are saying, tax evasion is NOT patriotic.
You apparently read "avoid" as "evade". Easy to do.
Wish these guys spent even a fraction of my money on important stuff, although the things you listed are federal, not state obligations.
Our politicians waste 80% of my money on things nobody would support, except maybe the people cashing the checks.
Get involved? Hmm, unless I'm ready to line up under a billion dollar entity that'll tell me how I'll be voting, I wouldn't have a chance in hell of running or changing anything. Unless I can swing that kind of money and power, there's no chance of changing the system.
All of this stuff works great because most people spend most of their time working and taking care of their family. I'm retired and cranky...doesn't work on me.
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money. Anyone or any entity that wants to private fund a project can whip out their checkbook.
Once you fix the unique online identify situation, you've also got all voting online capable.
Of course, none of this will ever happen. Not because of technology issues, but because polticians take the job for power and the ability to spend other peoples money with impunity. They sure as shoot don't want us voting online, because then everyone would do it and they'd have lots of available information to make their decisions. Politicians like people who do what they're told, when they're told.
Hell, we aren't even allowed to vote for candidates in the primaries unless we state a party affiliation and then we're only allowed to vote for candidates from that party. The republicans wont even send you a ballot if you ask for it, unless you register republican. They're uncomfortable with non-sheeple independent voters who might upset their preprogrammed apple cart.
how many millions has California spent (in manpower, in legal bills, etc) to 'win' this money? how many years of this will it take to break even?
and now that things will cost more, how much less will California consumers spend (both with Amazon and from local stores)
Ding Ding Ding, we have another winnar!
They'll get almost nothing. Most of it will go to two towns where amazon is building warehouses, and those towns are giving amazon most of the money to get them to build there.
So we the people will have a lot of their tax money spent collecting and redistributing the tax income, but very little of that will actually go to the state level. So they spent all of that (our) money getting next to nothing, and amazon and those two towns are smarter than Jerry and the CA legislation. Of course, the latter don't really care, as long as money is pouring over the sides of the ship and they can spend like drunken sailors.
Hey, the boom economy never ended here in CA. Ask our politicians, who have steadily increased spending on more and more stupid things as the economy has sagged.
And for those against taxes, how do you think the roads get built and repaired, bridges built, libraries funded, oversight to make sure our water, food, and medical care are safe, even trains and other public transportation (when you need it you appreciate it), fire departments, emergency response, kids educated, streets and roadways cleaned, etc. etc. etc. No taxes - and we will just end up with new fees from other sources.
I wish they'd spend money on those things. We've had our school budgets cut so far I had to spend $250 on school supplies for my kids room. Real exotic stuff like staplers and marker pens for the white board. I also have to routinely fix school computers as it appears they cut everyone who can fix anything. My wife and I spend time daily in the classroom, because there are too many students and the teachers can't even perform class management, let alone teach them.
We spend more on education and health care, yet get among the worst results.
All of the county fire departments and state resources are all isolated now and won't help each other without being paid for the pleasure. Can't wait until the next time we have a huge fire near a county line and everyone on the other side is sitting on their hands, waiting to get paid.
I live in a wealthy town, yet my roads suck. Most of the roads around here do. 15 miles from the state capital, so it aint like Jerry doesn't see it.
We cut our library staffs so much, many of them closed or are only open limited hours.
We're currently spending billions on a high speed rail that starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere, which nobody will ride.
But we spent $400k to put up new rodeo drive quality signs in my town.
My friend Jerry says he's asking for a tax increase, and if we don't give into it, he'll cut the schools, healthcare and state welfare budgets. I seem to have missed how they're going to cut back on unnecessary spending, like any sane person would do when they're spending more than they're taking in.
Sounds a lot like extortion to me.
I'd be Buffet-like and write a check for extra, if they actually put the money to good use. But they don't. If they spent most of it in the areas you mentioned, I'd be all for it. But that stuff is in last place when it comes time to write a check. The politicians know most of us are too stupid to think it through and will just buckle and pay more.
But if they raise taxes, I'm packed and ready to leave. We already pay high income, sales and property taxes. I'm not getting my moneys worth. Nevada or New Mexico or Oregon are alllll calling...
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
You underestimate how much I enjoy not giving my money to California.
Any tax money amazon gets, they'd get anyway. If $9 more breaks the bank on a $100 purchase then you shouldn't be spend the $100 anyway.
You're starting to sound like my wife.
Frankly, I buy 10% more than I would if I were universally taxed. What do you think does more for the economy...me and a brazillion other people spending a little extra to build and deliver things, or giving that money to the California legislators to build that high speed rail that starts near nothing and ends near nothing and that almost nobody will ever ride?
The's another dynamic here. Imagine if you're a brick and mortar store trying to compete with amazon. Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit. Inb4 brick and mortar is a fail: remember that they provide al people jobs in California, so if we can make brick and mortar more competitive with online (at least by removing artificial barriers) then it is good for the state.
B&M stores can't compete anyhow. If I want something, chances are I'd have to go to five stores to find it, and it'd be 20% more than I could buy the item for online. After I spent $5 worth of gas looking for it. Once again, no thanks.
Why level the playing field? Amazon has a very good business going that employs a lot of people. B&M stores that only stock a slice of what I want are yesterdays old moldy news.
You have seen the story about how amazon intends to deliver about 50-70% of their items the same day as ordered? They're already working with a van service here in the southwest and I've been happy with their deliveries so far.
Oh, and all of the grocery stores near me will pull and deliver an order for free. One did it so the rest had to follow suit.
Seems like the wave is moving away from lots of stores that don't have what I want to a bunch of giant warehouses and guys that bring the stuff to my house. But lets fark that up by 'leveling the playing field', which in my experience means cutting the legs out of someone doing a good job and handing them to someone that wants to screw those legs to the top of their head.
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Near my small California town, I can count about 20 million spent on the 32nd park in my small town, a roadside beautification project that is far from beautiful, new road signs made by the company that does them for Rodeo Drive (the old road signs were fine), a pedestrian overpass that absolutely nobody uses because its 10x longer than just running across the street, etc.
Don't even get me started on the Federal governments waste of my tax dollars.
I can spend my money in way more useful ways than they can, and I'm sure I've created more jobs than the entirety of the government, on every level. Hell, I have at least 4 different delivery people come to my house almost every day.
I avoid paying anything to the state of California, whenever possible. They only waste the money on pork and stuff nobody needs.
They also apparently haven't been paying attention to how all of this is going to shake out. Two towns in California are going to get huge amazon warehouses, and those two towns are getting the balance of the sales tax revenue, and they're giving most of it back to Amazon.
So California, amazon and those two towns will spend millions to collect next to nothing.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
It's kind of a generational thing, too... unless you're a geek, like many of us here. I think the current crop of educators are largely not "computer people", so they reject the idea of using an electronic book. There just has to be something wrong with it.
I think thats half of it. I think that there are two other facets at work...a romantic love of a paper book by people who end up in the education business, and that funny thing about books being a long term store of written material. Its a lot easier to remote wipe a bunch of tablets than burn a library of books, and that last piece may have some aspect of protection built in...if you recall some e-books being 'recalled' by amazon a while back.
If I may, because I worked for Intel at the time...allow me to shed a small bit of light on this.
Intel had a prepared 64 bit product...and no, it wasn't itanium. Different architecture for a different part of the building than the desktop. Problem with the 64 bit product was lack of operating system and driver support, meaning the only value it'd bring was >4GB addressing, at a time when 2GB of ram was considered absurdly large.
People want to slap AMD on the back for what they did, but what happened was a half assed 64 bit implementation with limited kernel support, very little in the way of stable drivers, and no applications to speak of.
Competition may be great in some regards, but if it makes you fire off three shots before aiming, its not really a measured success if you happen to accidentally hit something. Most of the people who bought 64 bit cpu's back in the day had no use for the capability whatsoever, and didn't have much benefit until years later.
Years ago Intel built silicon in partnership with the operating system vendors and app suppliers, and when the products were released there was actual code you could run on them and gain benefit from the purchase.
The only reason AMD tossed it out was because most computer buyers have no idea what they're buying, and 64 is more than 32, and AMD was getting hit in the face with the Core architecture, and realized they were 5 years away from starting to compete with that.
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Thoughtful answer. You see a few things you don't like (maybe accounting for 1% of the budget), ignore the rest (e.g. the road you're standing on), and feel you are in your good right to evade a necessary evil put in place to avoid the tragedy of the commons?
Are you really sure you're not a jerk?
You don't understand. I'm guessing that roughly 75-80% of our money is spent on something that nobody derives any considerable benefit from. Public services got cut first. Bullet trains, new buildings and facilities, huge projects with questionable issues (like digging tunnels under the Sacramento Delta to bring more water to Jerry's southern california friends), etc.
Its complete bullshit. Its pitchforks and torches time.
I don't have the luxury of spending money I don't have
Sure you do. It's called a loan. Lots of people get them. They finance all sorts of things, like homes, cars, college educations, etc. Most people with mortgages have a far worse ratio of debt to income than the federal government and pay much higher rates.
Since I'm an avid Lending Club investor, I'm getting a kick...
Yeah, the government taught us well how to spend money we dont have on things we dont need and cant afford. Rinse and repeat.
Californians elected the shitheads who brought about this situation, primarily by voting for people who promised to "reign in government". It is precisely THOSE people who are rigidly ideologically opposed to any government at all who fuck it up the most. If you want to rein in the spending, STOP VOTING FOR MORONS WHO'S ONLY GOAL IS TO FUCK IT UP *ON PURPOSE* SO THAT YOU SUPPORT THEM.
Who would these people be that we could vote for, yet aren't? As an independent voter, I'm only allowed to vote for independent candidates in the primary. The dems and republicans pick their own representatives for us to vote on, and they throw money behind the one they want to win, so thats not a choice.
Not to mention most people in california are just going to vote for the democrats in the legislature (yellow dog style) and once in a while we put a republican governor just to antagonize them when they aren't doing what we want. Then we cut the legs off the governor so they can't actually do anything.
So yep, its all our fault. Not sure there is any reasonable way to get other candidates into office.
Of course, you could fix this by setting a maximum amount anyone could spend on a run for office. Right now, its money talks.
It's hard to have sympathy for the state's plight. When the state announced they were going to close 70 state parks private individuals donated money in an attempt to keep some of those parks open.
Then it turned out that up to $54 million was squirrelled away, for still murky reasons, that should of gone to funding the parks.
Thats still being investigated, but there isn't any murkiness so far. The state prevented them from being paid for back pay and vacation time they didn't use, so they squirreled the money away and didn't get caught until they quietly started paying themselves extra from the slush fund. A million bucks says nobody goes to jail over this, and anyone that loses their job gets one working for some contractor with an extra zero on the end of their salary.
Now they're looking into trying to figure out what other departments have large slush funds.
And yes, that $54M would have gone a long way to avoiding any shutdowns or limitations. The funny part is how the parks department closed the most popular parks first. Extortion works that way.
I avoid paying anything to the state of California, whenever possible. They only waste the money on pork and stuff nobody needs.
They also apparently haven't been paying attention to how all of this is going to shake out. Two towns in California are going to get huge amazon warehouses, and those two towns are getting the balance of the sales tax revenue, and they're giving most of it back to Amazon.
So California, amazon and those two towns will spend millions to collect next to nothing.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
Really? Rated 'troll'?
LOL
I thought a troll was telling a falsehood intended to unnecessarily inflame people. I didn't realize you got that label when you told the truth. Are we employing state workers to moderate the forum these days?
So why would it make any difference if Amazon lowered their prices? California would still be getting its cut.
You haven't been doing your reading. California is getting almost nothing from this. The tax money is collected by the state, most of that is earmarked by law to go to the point of origination of the sale, which is two towns in california that have agreed to give almost all of the collected sales tax back to amazon in exchange for amazon building distribution centers in their towns and employing a lot of poor hispanic people who live in those towns.
We will however spend a ton of money collecting and redistributing those funds, as we've spent a ton of money extorting amazon to collect the sales tax, even though they have no legal profile in the state that would require collection.
So the genesis is:
- State too stupid to spend less than they take in
- State prefers to spend money on boondoggles and pork
- State looks for more money to spend
- Amazon doesn't collect sales tax, and legally doesn't have to
- State extorts amazon by threatening endless lawsuits if they don't capitulate
- California loses millions when Amazon yanks its affiliate program and the affiliates 'move' their business to other states
- Amazon and two smart california towns agree, and then structure it so amazon gets back all the money
- Workers in states surrounding california lose their jobs to people in the new california distribution centers, since amazons business is a zero sum game
The two towns in california win, because they get jobs. Its bad for amazon, because they'll lose some business that won't pay the tax. Its bad for the state, because they already spent more money than they're going to get, trying to get the money. Its bad for amazon workers in peripheral states.
In short, its the same result you get when any government entity tries to manipulate a situation to their advantage. Since most government workers aren't the cream of the crop, someone else with a better brain has their way with them, then the government entity declares victory (mission accomplished!) and moves on to the next sad target.
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money.
That is a TERRIBLE idea. We'd have massive statues of dicks and giant pudding-filled swimming pools. You can't trust this shit to the internet and you sure as hell can't trust the wisdom of mob-rule.
Those would be better than what we have today. Right now we have special interests plug away at what they want and they get it. Then there's no money for schools, roads, etc. Then we have to vote for more taxes to pay that.
So our current approach is a terrible idea. I was just digging into my work experience where we build Zero Based Budgets. Everything from headcount to projects is priced out and prioritized, and then we draw a zero base line at the point where we run out of money. Funded items need to be defunded, or funding needs to increase to get projects below the line to be done. Works like a charm when you need a budget increase or someone further up the food chain wants to cut spending and be told what will go as a result of the cuts. Pretty clean, and lots of visibility.
We already have a legislature that could put up a list of projects, then the public could zero the budgets on pork and bullshit projects, while supporting things we really want. When people vote to move the line, we agree to pay more for specific things we want done. When we get rid of the stupid spending and have money left over...tax cut time.
Isn't that what California does now? Prop 123 to pay for X and Prop 456 to pay for Y. Some outrageous percentage of their budget is tied up in these "feel good" mandates. The legislature wants to increase funding for teachers, but they first have to pay out to the "orphan kitten" fund. When someone attempts to repeal the mandate, they are villainized in TV ads, saying they want to feed the kittens, and the elderly, to alligators.
No, what they do now is spend most of the money on pork, and when people get pissed about not getting their roads fixed or schools funded, they float a referendum that lets us pay extra for the stuff that should be getting the money first.
Glad you mentioned kittens, it gives me an awesome opportunity to explain even more practically fraudulent spending. Four months ago, we adopted a dog. I went to the county animal shelter. Nice place, just built a few years ago for ~$25 million dollars. Has paw print embossed ceiling tiles, separate room for each cat with furniture, and of course due to legislature passed, had to be decorated with a million dollars worth of local art, most of which was fairly horrifying.
This new facility went quite well for a couple of months until they realized they didn't have the money to staff it, or even pay the electric bill. So they had a fund raiser and got enough money to keep the doors open, but had to cancel the free spay/neuter clinic due to lack of funds.
So the one thing that would reduce shelter demand long term? Lets cut that. Can we afford the facility we built, before we waste money on frilly crap? No. Could we have built a simpler facility twice as large, with twice the staff, with the free spay/neuter clinic intact and a lower build/operate cost? You betcha!
But the money was donated into little buckets that had to be spent on the earmarked items. This problem is thoroughly ingrained into california funding and politics. Schwarzenegger wanted to fix that problem, but the legislature buried him and when he asked the public via referendum for the power to override them, we said no. So I guess we like money wasted on dumb shit while there isn't any for the important stuff?
Anyone else catching the stupid that reigns in this state yet?
Oh yeah, and the shelter had 300 chihuahua's and 300 pit bulls in it. Four other dogs, one of which I did adopt. I know why there are a lot of those two types of dogs, but ehh...I don't think they're all going to get adopted...
Sales tax? BFD.
I spend approximately $17,000 a year at Amazon. My state tax load would be a bit over $1500 per year.
Which qualifies it for a serious BFD in this household.
No biggie. There are usually 4-5 online companies with prices within a few percent of each other. I usually give amazon the nod because of their good customer service, return policy, fast shipping and competitive prices. Add 9% to those prices and I'm buying from one of the other 3-4 who don't.
I'm sorry, on reflection I could have been more succinct.
California extorted Amazon into entering into a taxation agreement.
Just like they're going to do to the voters later this year.
Easy. Amazon has no presence in california, so they never had to collect sales tax. California passed legislation that made affiliates (people who list amazon products on their personal site, often with reviews and 'how-to's and received payment for a click through) were employees, so amazon had employees in the state and had to collect tax.
So amazon 'fired' all of their affiliates, many of which set up fronts in Oregon or other states and continued as before, but many also threw in the towel, costing california jobs and job income.
Then the state said they'd pass endless streams of legislation until amazon bowed. We've spent millions on this crap.
So amazon got two towns to agree to hand over most of the sales tax revenue which will come their way, and is building warehouses there. Sales tax revenue goes mostly to the physical place where the transaction occurred, which is the warehouse town in this instance. So after spending millions and tying up legislature time pursuing the matter, the state will receive maybe 20-30mil of that 300-something discussed in the original article. At least the rest will go to jobs in those two towns, mostly poor hispanic people.
But then quite a few of the people in surrounding states that work at warehouses that amazon only set up to ship quickly into california will lose their jobs. Won't be needed anymore.
So some benefit to california, at the cost of its neighbors. Nearly zero budget relief. This is what I've come to expect from our state political machine...a lot of noise, a lot of movement...but nothing much happens at the end.
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent.
Sorry but this is a bit of a cop-out.
We all want the money to be spent well. We all want to have say in how it's used. But the reality is that sometimes the money is going to be spent on things we don't like (e.g. Iraq or TSA). And people who do like these things don't want money going to, say, ACORN or Planned Parenthood (I'm making some generalizations here). And someone who lives in Northern California might not like that $200 of his taxes are going towards widening a freeway in San Diego. But this is how government (even an efficient and trim one, which CA is not) works.
If you want to fix government and how it spends your money, get involved. Hold your representatives accountable for how they vote (not what they say in speeches). Don't use the fact that government does many things (some you like, some you don't) as an excuse to skip taxes. Despite what some politicians are saying, tax evasion is NOT patriotic.
You apparently read "avoid" as "evade". Easy to do.
Wish these guys spent even a fraction of my money on important stuff, although the things you listed are federal, not state obligations.
Our politicians waste 80% of my money on things nobody would support, except maybe the people cashing the checks.
Get involved? Hmm, unless I'm ready to line up under a billion dollar entity that'll tell me how I'll be voting, I wouldn't have a chance in hell of running or changing anything. Unless I can swing that kind of money and power, there's no chance of changing the system.
All of this stuff works great because most people spend most of their time working and taking care of their family. I'm retired and cranky...doesn't work on me.
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money. Anyone or any entity that wants to private fund a project can whip out their checkbook.
Once you fix the unique online identify situation, you've also got all voting online capable.
Of course, none of this will ever happen. Not because of technology issues, but because polticians take the job for power and the ability to spend other peoples money with impunity. They sure as shoot don't want us voting online, because then everyone would do it and they'd have lots of available information to make their decisions. Politicians like people who do what they're told, when they're told.
Hell, we aren't even allowed to vote for candidates in the primaries unless we state a party affiliation and then we're only allowed to vote for candidates from that party. The republicans wont even send you a ballot if you ask for it, unless you register republican. They're uncomfortable with non-sheeple independent voters who might upset their preprogrammed apple cart.
how many millions has California spent (in manpower, in legal bills, etc) to 'win' this money? how many years of this will it take to break even?
and now that things will cost more, how much less will California consumers spend (both with Amazon and from local stores)
Ding Ding Ding, we have another winnar!
They'll get almost nothing. Most of it will go to two towns where amazon is building warehouses, and those towns are giving amazon most of the money to get them to build there.
So we the people will have a lot of their tax money spent collecting and redistributing the tax income, but very little of that will actually go to the state level. So they spent all of that (our) money getting next to nothing, and amazon and those two towns are smarter than Jerry and the CA legislation. Of course, the latter don't really care, as long as money is pouring over the sides of the ship and they can spend like drunken sailors.
Hey, the boom economy never ended here in CA. Ask our politicians, who have steadily increased spending on more and more stupid things as the economy has sagged.
And for those against taxes, how do you think the roads get built and repaired, bridges built, libraries funded, oversight to make sure our water, food, and medical care are safe, even trains and other public transportation (when you need it you appreciate it), fire departments, emergency response, kids educated, streets and roadways cleaned, etc. etc. etc. No taxes - and we will just end up with new fees from other sources.
I wish they'd spend money on those things. We've had our school budgets cut so far I had to spend $250 on school supplies for my kids room. Real exotic stuff like staplers and marker pens for the white board. I also have to routinely fix school computers as it appears they cut everyone who can fix anything. My wife and I spend time daily in the classroom, because there are too many students and the teachers can't even perform class management, let alone teach them.
We spend more on education and health care, yet get among the worst results.
All of the county fire departments and state resources are all isolated now and won't help each other without being paid for the pleasure. Can't wait until the next time we have a huge fire near a county line and everyone on the other side is sitting on their hands, waiting to get paid.
I live in a wealthy town, yet my roads suck. Most of the roads around here do. 15 miles from the state capital, so it aint like Jerry doesn't see it.
We cut our library staffs so much, many of them closed or are only open limited hours.
We're currently spending billions on a high speed rail that starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere, which nobody will ride.
But we spent $400k to put up new rodeo drive quality signs in my town.
My friend Jerry says he's asking for a tax increase, and if we don't give into it, he'll cut the schools, healthcare and state welfare budgets. I seem to have missed how they're going to cut back on unnecessary spending, like any sane person would do when they're spending more than they're taking in.
Sounds a lot like extortion to me.
I'd be Buffet-like and write a check for extra, if they actually put the money to good use. But they don't. If they spent most of it in the areas you mentioned, I'd be all for it. But that stuff is in last place when it comes time to write a check. The politicians know most of us are too stupid to think it through and will just buckle and pay more.
But if they raise taxes, I'm packed and ready to leave. We already pay high income, sales and property taxes. I'm not getting my moneys worth. Nevada or New Mexico or Oregon are alllll calling...
Don't need BACON?
Wrong bunny.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
You underestimate how much I enjoy not giving my money to California.
Any tax money amazon gets, they'd get anyway. If $9 more breaks the bank on a $100 purchase then you shouldn't be spend the $100 anyway.
You're starting to sound like my wife.
Frankly, I buy 10% more than I would if I were universally taxed. What do you think does more for the economy...me and a brazillion other people spending a little extra to build and deliver things, or giving that money to the California legislators to build that high speed rail that starts near nothing and ends near nothing and that almost nobody will ever ride?
The's another dynamic here. Imagine if you're a brick and mortar store trying to compete with amazon. Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit. Inb4 brick and mortar is a fail: remember that they provide al people jobs in California, so if we can make brick and mortar more competitive with online (at least by removing artificial barriers) then it is good for the state.
B&M stores can't compete anyhow. If I want something, chances are I'd have to go to five stores to find it, and it'd be 20% more than I could buy the item for online. After I spent $5 worth of gas looking for it. Once again, no thanks.
Why level the playing field? Amazon has a very good business going that employs a lot of people. B&M stores that only stock a slice of what I want are yesterdays old moldy news.
You have seen the story about how amazon intends to deliver about 50-70% of their items the same day as ordered? They're already working with a van service here in the southwest and I've been happy with their deliveries so far.
Oh, and all of the grocery stores near me will pull and deliver an order for free. One did it so the rest had to follow suit.
Seems like the wave is moving away from lots of stores that don't have what I want to a bunch of giant warehouses and guys that bring the stuff to my house. But lets fark that up by 'leveling the playing field', which in my experience means cutting the legs out of someone doing a good job and handing them to someone that wants to screw those legs to the top of their head.
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Near my small California town, I can count about 20 million spent on the 32nd park in my small town, a roadside beautification project that is far from beautiful, new road signs made by the company that does them for Rodeo Drive (the old road signs were fine), a pedestrian overpass that absolutely nobody uses because its 10x longer than just running across the street, etc.
Don't even get me started on the Federal governments waste of my tax dollars.
I can spend my money in way more useful ways than they can, and I'm sure I've created more jobs than the entirety of the government, on every level. Hell, I have at least 4 different delivery people come to my house almost every day.
I avoid paying anything to the state of California, whenever possible. They only waste the money on pork and stuff nobody needs.
They also apparently haven't been paying attention to how all of this is going to shake out. Two towns in California are going to get huge amazon warehouses, and those two towns are getting the balance of the sales tax revenue, and they're giving most of it back to Amazon.
So California, amazon and those two towns will spend millions to collect next to nothing.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
It's kind of a generational thing, too... unless you're a geek, like many of us here. I think the current crop of educators are largely not "computer people", so they reject the idea of using an electronic book. There just has to be something wrong with it.
I think thats half of it. I think that there are two other facets at work...a romantic love of a paper book by people who end up in the education business, and that funny thing about books being a long term store of written material. Its a lot easier to remote wipe a bunch of tablets than burn a library of books, and that last piece may have some aspect of protection built in...if you recall some e-books being 'recalled' by amazon a while back.
If I may, because I worked for Intel at the time...allow me to shed a small bit of light on this.
Intel had a prepared 64 bit product...and no, it wasn't itanium. Different architecture for a different part of the building than the desktop. Problem with the 64 bit product was lack of operating system and driver support, meaning the only value it'd bring was >4GB addressing, at a time when 2GB of ram was considered absurdly large.
People want to slap AMD on the back for what they did, but what happened was a half assed 64 bit implementation with limited kernel support, very little in the way of stable drivers, and no applications to speak of.
Competition may be great in some regards, but if it makes you fire off three shots before aiming, its not really a measured success if you happen to accidentally hit something. Most of the people who bought 64 bit cpu's back in the day had no use for the capability whatsoever, and didn't have much benefit until years later.
Years ago Intel built silicon in partnership with the operating system vendors and app suppliers, and when the products were released there was actual code you could run on them and gain benefit from the purchase.
The only reason AMD tossed it out was because most computer buyers have no idea what they're buying, and 64 is more than 32, and AMD was getting hit in the face with the Core architecture, and realized they were 5 years away from starting to compete with that.
Apparently you think that running a hunk of code through a checker means its virus proof, or moreso than another product.
I'm tempted to say something like "epic fail", but that'd be an insult to epic failures everywhere.
Simple news is so....simple! Last year the most common 10 year old computer was a 386. This year the most common 10 year old computer is an AMD sled?
Really eye opening. Was some AMD fanboy trying to make a point or did someone post this pre-coffee?