Taxable Talk

Not only has the BOE updated their list, but California’s Franchise Tax Board has updated its list of the top 250 delinquent in income tax. It took just $290,965 to make this list, but leading the way are Halsey and Shannon Minor of San Francisco. The Minors are shown as owing $13,120,479.

There aren’t as many celebrities on the list as in the past, though one Pamela Anderson is shown owing $493,145. Also shown on the list is Ronald Isley; he owes $303,411.

The total owed by these 250 taxpayers (which does include some business entities) is $140,515,958.

The headline is apropos for the 111th Congress which likely won’t act on much of the budget, the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, or the Estate Tax before the 111th Congress mercifully fades into oblivion. It will be difficult if not impossible for the 112th Congress to be worse than its predecessor.

However, that’s not what I’m writing about this evening. Rather, I’m writing about California. Steven Greenhut penned a superb op-ed that appeared in yesterday’s Orange County Register. Mr. Greenhut’s key point is stated almost at the beginning of the piece (though you should read the entire piece):

I think of my beloved California in the same light. What a great state, but it remains on a collision course with reality. We can’t keep spending money we don’t have, punishing those who pay the bills and ignoring the advice of truth tellers.

The problem is that Democrats in Sacramento appear completely clueless regarding basic economics. There solution to almost every problem is to increase taxes. Voters want it both ways, too: They want great services but don’t you dare increase our taxes. The major liberal-leaning newspapers write about eliminating Proposition 13 (at least as to how it applies to businesses, though they would prefer it vanish completely).

There’s a harsh reality that must be faced sooner or later by the Golden State: You can’t spend your way out of economic trouble. Those wonderful pensions will need to be cut with an axe, not massaged with a hand eraser. Remember those wonderful bureaucratic agencies you set up to regulate everything; you won’t just cut a regulation here or there but entire agencies will need to be cut. That’s the only solution to the problem.

Well, I guess there is another solution that would work in an alternate universe: Force all businesses to leave the state by increasing taxes to such a point that anyone who can leave does. Given what many Democratic legislators are saying in Sacramento, it appears they’re in that alternate universe.