California plans for tax hikes during the recession

In the midst of a sudden recession that has erased, at least temporarily, millions of jobs, Governor Gavin Newsom is looking to raise taxes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s much-revised 2020-21 budget points to tax increases in this heavily taxed state. It assumes a $41.2 billion drop in revenues from the initial budget he unveiled in January.  The total deficit is $54.3 billion and he is making wholesale reductions in K-12 schools, higher education, and other popular services to close the gap.

However, he is not taking anything away from people here illegally, who get a lot of free benefits. In fact, he just gave them $75 million in cash payouts.

Schools and colleges claim they can’t open safely with a cut.

Noting that Newsom proposes to raise $4.4 billion by suspending some business tax breaks, the coalition added. This is as the businesses will struggle to survive.

“Alternate revenue sources” is obviously a euphemism for new taxes of some kind, most likely additional income taxes on those at the top of the economic ladder. Tax-the-rich has been a deficit-closing maneuver in past recessions and earlier, before the pandemic struck, some members of the coalition had proposed such an increase to raise school spending, Mercury News reports.

That proposal, which was to have appeared on the November ballot, was set aside to avoid competition with another measure, backed mostly by public employee unions, to raise property taxes on commercial buildings such as warehouses, hotels, and office buildings.

He has the commercial tax measures on the ballot. This would cause rents to increase as small businesses try to get their businesses running again. It will especially hurt restaurants.

More taxes will slow recovery in general.

Newsom wants the federal government to fill his budget gap. The state is irresponsible in that their deficit is huge and they have nothing to fall back on.

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