<p>Marite, Congress should have let Stevens resign.</p>
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That may be true, as is always the case in a representative democracy. And I know it’s not perfect, and that pork barrel politics exist. I still don’t see that we should legitimize this inequity by assuming that political power should belong to more populous or higher income states.</p>
<p>sjmom2329, what political power stuff?</p>
<p>Californians and the other states Marite mentioned are paying more to the federal government than these states are receiving back.</p>
<p>California would not be in the financial shape it is in if it received what it paid to the federal government. </p>
<p>California politicians should be working hard to see that in the future California receives back what it pays into the system.</p>
<p>Feinstein, Boxer and Schwarzenager would better serve the state if they concentrated on this and not side issues.</p>
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<p>I do so agree. Even his constituents were in favof of using that $453k for hurricane relief. We have a spineless Congress.</p>
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<p>I think when you have a representative government areas with greater population are legitimate in having greater political power. The more people the greater number of congressmen. That does not mean a particular state will get more power or even that the majority of the people will get more power. Gerrymandering districts and the use of simple majority wins…can create situations where the majority will be under represented. While Prop 77 was rejected, the idea of changing the way California creates districts will be discussed in future legislative sessions. It is difficult to fix, and hard for some people to understand how this works and why it is important.</p>
<p>So here is a simple example. Three hundred people are to be divided into three districts of one hundred people each. Half of the people vote A and half vote B parties. If we seperate them so District 1 gets 90 for A and 10 for B. District 2 gets 40 for A and 70 for B and District 3 gets 20 for A and 70 for B. One A rep and two B reps…if we change the district we can create two safe A seats and one safe B seats. Most existing rules maintain incumbents and that should be addressed nationally.</p>
<p>Whichever party gets a majority then appoints a majority leader and all committee chairs. When seniority is considered states that have only one issue tend to have the senior most members. For example, a state like Nebraska is more likely to re-elect members because the members tend to support agricultural issues. A representative from New York, must meet the complex needs of industrial and rural, consumer and producer. Accordingly, rural one issue states have a greater chance of getting someone in charge of important committees.</p>
<p>Higher income states may have enhanced political power because of the fundraising capacity of these states, but that doesn’t meant the whole state will benefit, but could mean certain industries or segments of those states will.</p>
<p>Some states will get added federal support because they hold key defense positions: air bases and ports that serve military needs. In a low populated state an air field would turn the tax flow into positive for your state. Californians should get more assistance from the Federal Government for our roads and research facilities before bridges to small islands are built. This is one of the things the Governor said he would do for us, but few are satisfied with his results.</p>
<p>Dstark, I disagree about the notion that any state should receive back what it pays in Federal taxes. Needs are not uniform and may vary over time. Taxes are paid into the common pool for the common good and as messy as the way Congress arbitrates the spending, I have no problem with the principle.</p>
<p>Sjmom, the smaller states actually have greater political power by having disproportionate sway in the electoral college and in the U.S. Senate. A state like Wyoming gets 200 percent of its House representation in the Senate, California gets less than 4 percent of its House representation in the Senate. </p>
<p>However if money = power makes you uncomfortable, prepared to stay uncomfortable for a long time. Money is the most corrosive influence in politics and I don’t see anyway to eliminate it, the best I seeing is tamping down it down to a dull roar instead of a full-throated scream.</p>
<p>As for the attitudes, many of the Red States lack large urban centers and are relatively homogenous in comparison. Many of the residents <em>do</em> get all smug and self righteous with the “Thank our God™ that we don’t deal with those problems here.” Urban dwellers–and urban centers are just about uniformly Blue–also understand interdependence in society in ways that have political implications. It’s no accident that the Red States tend to have more population that is rural & small town. </p>
<p>FF, Gray Davis was an insular politically avaricious mediocrity (about money he was a Democratic Tom DeLay, never took a dime towards personal wealth). Ahnold won the recall because of celebrity and because it was essentially an Open Primary. He is widely suspect in the state GOP as a RINO, ignoring the fact that a RINO is the only way the GOP can get someone elected here; cf., NYC mayor. </p>
<p>Since his election, Ahnold has tacked Right but it will do him no good. He’ll be tossed out on his ear next year and I’d bet that the only GOP statewide officer <em>might</em> be MacPherson if the Dems don’t pitch the shutout.</p>
<p>FF - TheDad explained the Davis/Arnold thing pretty well, so I won’t elaborate. But you’re right, California is just as guilty of buying into a something-for-nothing sales pitch as the rest of the world - The first thing Arnold did after being elected in a state with a $10 Billion deficit from the dot-com bust was keep his promise to cut taxes by $5 Billion a year. We borrowed $15 Billion to patch the gap, and after the economy righted itself we were left with a structural $5 Billion annual deficit. Obviously - its the teachers’ fault!
Hmmm, if we’d just left the whole tax/spend thing alone, we’d be,— oh no - can’t go there! gotta blame the mess on something other than a promise that “I can cut taxes and deliver the same level of services.”</p>
<p>Thedad, I don’t really disagree with you, but right now California needs the money.</p>
<p>Most states dealt with the tough years by cutting expenses fairly drastically. I have not heard that any of those states has gone in the dumper educationally.</p>
<p>Most states have real property taxes as a larger share of their total revenue. Property taxes are far less volatile than income taxes in reponse to boom/bust business cycles. In California, a flood of tax $$ came in with the dot-com boom, and went out just as quickly with the bust. During the boom taxes were cut, and educational programs expanded. During the bust, the tax cuts were sacred, but the programs (Governor’s scholarships, anyone?) were toast. I guess every state is different, and everyone’s definition of “in the dumper” is different as well.</p>
<p>UVa had a cut in state funding of about 40% from 2000 to 2004. Michigan 20%, Wisconsin 15%. How have the UC schools faired?</p>
<p>Dstark, yes, California needs the money. But let’s look at the bigger picture: we can fight an expensive open-ended off-the-budget war, we can lavish tax cuts that mostly benefit the top one percent of incomes, but we have to cut social programs to pay for rebuilding after the hurricanes. Check. </p>
<p>The Bush administration has declared economic jihad on the states and upon the middle class. Time to put a stop to that. And actually, slowly, I think the time is already arriving as some Republicans look at Bush’s poll numbers and start thinking about saving their own electoral skins…may it be an exercise in futility.</p>
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<p>Is it 2008 yet?</p>
<p>The top 1% pay much of the taxes–who would you think benefits from a cut–the one that actually pays a large amount of tax. Is that too complex for you?</p>
<p>J in 2008</p>
<p>Warren Buffett was considered an economic advisor for the Gov. when he was running for office but was quickly moved out of the picture when he commented how his $4 million dollar California home had a real property tax bill of $2,264 while his $500,000 house had a bill of $14,401. His solution: Undo prop. 13 because California’s real property tax makes no sense. Anyone with a $200,000 house in most other states probably pays more real property tax than Buffet does on his California mansion. The tax increase on his Omaha home was $1,920 while his increase for his California mansion was $23.</p>
<p>Revamp prop 13 and change the budget process so a simple majority of the legislature can fix state finances. The current system lets a small greedy minority to block legislative solutions.</p>
<p>Mr. B, I think we are taxed enough. If you look at the government receipts before the stock market crash, the state was rolling in dough. The government spent all the money and then some.</p>
<p>barrons, as you’ll recall I posted the data from the IRS website a couple of months ago (“IRS numbers in through 2003”) which shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, whose annual income averages over $800,000, pay the same percentage of their income in federal tax as do those who earn between $19K and $95K a year as a result of top-favoring tax cuts which have eliminated the progressivity of the tax structure over the past 20 years. When you add in the impact of sales taxes and legal tax-avoidance techniques it is clear that the tax structure as a whole is actually regressive when comparing the middle class with the wealthy. It’s not just that the wealthy save more because they have more income and thus more taxes, they pay less as a percent of their income due to the way the tax system has been skewed to make it regressive. This has been a part of the public policy which has driven the top 1% from taking home 10% of the nation’s income to 17%, while the bottom 50% have seen their share of the pie drop from 17% to 14%. Just how much lower should the tax rates on the extremely wealthy be compared to the middle class? How far should the “rich get richer” philosophy be pushed?</p>
<p>dstark, you’re not exactly right. When the boom came the government a) lowered taxes and b) increased spending (including the Governor’s scholarship program - a program which actually would have benefitted me personally. Grrrrrr.) When the boom went bust the programs were cut, but the restoration of the vehicle tax (a part of state revenue sources since the 1930’s) was vetoed by Arnold as a classic act of political grandstanding. That left our overall taxes at a level which was $5 Billion below the level they were at before the dot-com boom. Absent a free lunch - yeah, we have a deficit.</p>
<p>No matter how you slice and dice the numbers they still pay way more in real tax dollars, period. Do they require more services?? I think not.</p>
<p>You think not? More property owned = more police & fire services required. Who benefits most from the subsidies provided to infrastructure? Airports, water systems, freeways, the SEC, anti-trust enforcement agencies? As a local public official, I am very aware how tax dollars are spent to directly assist local businesses - we build parking lots for the business district, spend money on promoting our downtown, hire consultants to figure out how best to boost the income of our local commercial interests - all out of tax revenue. It’s even more true on state and federal levels. Those businesses are owned by - guess who? </p>
<p>The thing is, the subsidies to the wealthy are so ingrained that people don’t even think about them. A welfare check is a welfare check - easy to quantify. But how do you assess the demographic impact of farm subsidies, publicly funded R&D, and general infrastructure improvements? It’s subtle. Who has benefited most from the federal dollars that were invested in the development of this internet we’re chatting on? Not the poor - they don’t even have computers. If you take an honest, uncritical look at all the money government spends - on all levels - you’ll find that the lion’s share that can be traced to a differential impact on varied income levels actually benefits the affluent to extremely wealthy in a disproportionate manner. There’s just nobody with an incentive to publicize that fact.</p>
<p>Now you are introducing all sorts of noise into the discussion. Fact is most wealthy people are not burning down their houses or having lots of police calls. Most of that happens in the 'hood where I used to live before moving out to the burbs.</p>
<p>The poor may or may not have computers but the have TVs which is also free entertainment.</p>