Freshman Assemblyman (and fellow FR blogger) Curt Hagman released the following statement about his stance on the staggering new tax increases in the budget proposal:
“California’s economy is in shambles. Businesses, jobs and taxpayers keep leaving the state. According to the Employment Development Department (EDD), on January 1, 2009 there are 184,500 (8%) more employees on the government payroll than on January 1, 2001. Over those same eight years, private sector employment is up only 33,600 (0.2%).This means that the public sector accounts for 85 percent of the overall growth in California over the last eight years.
Even before an estimated $6.4 billion in business tax increases from last year’s budget, California employers already paid taxes that were 20 percent more than the national average. The national population of millionaire households grew by 5.9% in 2007, Los Angeles County lost about 7000 of these households. Orange and San Diego Counties lost millionaire households as well.
Maricopa County in neighboring Arizona gained 23,000 new millionaire households in the same time period. Why? Arizona’s top marginal personal income tax rate is 4.79%, less than half California’s rate of 10.3% According to the US Census Bureau, California has the highest paid public employees in the nation.
Here’s a sampling of layoffs — not "furloughs" — that were scheduled in the private sector for January and February, according to California’s EDD WARN statistics:
• Cadence Design System, Inc. — San Jose, Layoff date: 1/4/09, Employees affected: 245
• National Semiconductor Corporation — Santa Clara, Layoff date: 1/13/09, Employees affected: 151
• Palm, Inc. — Sunnyvale, Layoff date: 1/19/09, Employees affected: 107
• Sandisk Corporation — Milpitas, Layoff date: 1/11/09, Employees affected: 96
• Shutterfly, Inc — Hayward, Layoff date: 1/16/09, Employees affected: 70
• Sun Microsystems, Inc. — Menlo Park, Layoff date: 1/5/09, Employees affected: 19
• Symantec — Cupertino, Layoff date: 1/19/09, Employees affected: 55 — Mountain view, Layoff date: 1/13/09, Employees affected: 38
• The Boeing Company — Huntington Beach, Layoff date: 1/1/09, Employees affected: 19 — Huntington Beach, Layoff date: 1/22/09, Employees affected: 42 — Long Beach, Layoff date: 1/1/09, Employees affected: 50
And recently Gregg Industries–El Monte, Layoff date: April 2009, Employees affected: 234
Now we are being asked to raise the sales tax, the gas tax, the car tax and of all things a tax on the income taxes of Californians. We are fixing this budget on the backs of the hard working citizens of California whose only mistake was to trust us with their governance. I came here to try to reform and fix the problems caused by government, not make it harder for citizens to make a living.
I will be voting no on the proposed tax increases.”