Californians - Payroll Tax Increase (sort of) FYI

[Ben]

For the CA residents. Some of you may already know this, but I just found out that beginning 01NOV the state is withholding MORE of your pay than you have alloted in your W-4. They are doing this to basically get an interest free loan from taxpayers. Your annual tax rate is the same, so if you keep the same withholding exemptions, you'd be getting that money "refunded" to you when you file your taxes. However speaking for myself, I don't like the government using my money for free, so I increased my exemptions by 1. Just an FYI in case any of you want to do the same.

http://www.mybanktracker.com/bank-news/2009/11/06/california-ups-its-withholding-tax-rate/

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-state-tax31-2009oct31,0,2028140.story

[Monkeyleg]

I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about that the other day. What happens if there's no money next year at tax time for those who have overpaid? Will those folks get IOU's as many others have been who are owed money by the state?

[MechAg94]

Will the voters over there keep electing Democrats to their legislature?

[RocketMan]

Will the voters over there keep electing Democrats to their legislature?

Yes.

[Fjolnirsson]

Will Californians flee the state in droves, only to demand the same failed policies in their new states? Yes....

[Ben]

Will Californians flee the state in droves, only to demand the same failed policies in their new states? Yes....

I won't.

[Monkeyleg]

You won't flee, Ben, or you won't demand the same failed policies?

Most of the western states seem to have been really screwed up by California liberals relocating to better locales. How else to explain John McCain or Harry Reid?

[Standing Wolf]

Will the voters over there keep electing Democrats to their legislature?

Ordinary looters need well placed professional looters to lead the way.

[RocketMan]

Most of the western states seem to have been really screwed up by California liberals relocating to better locales. How else to explain John McCain or Harry Reid?

Or damn near any politician in Oregon.

[Ben]

You won't flee, Ben, or you won't demand the same failed policies?

Both.

[Balog]

Ordinary looters need well placed professional looters to lead the way.

Yup. I hope the liberals and hippies who screwed up Kalifornistan stay put and sleep in the bed they've made.

No offense to you Ben, I know you're one of the good guys. Just out numbered there...

[De Selby]

California gets this reputation for being a "liberal hippy state" that makes no sense to me.

Criminal penalties in California? They hand out 20 to life sentences there like party favors.  Part of the reason the state is going broke is that it has to pay to house all those people that get the life sentences.

Can't blame that one on the hippies and liberals.

The State's economy is collapsing? That's because the entire tax/business system was built by the Reagan-Duke-Wilson trio.  You know, the guys who thought wholesale deregulation was an awesome idea for real estate and securities markets.  Don't even get me started on energy deregulation, which led to rolling blackouts and the public being "served" by such honest folk as Enron.

The mess is biggest in California because the state was built on the same policies that led to the financial meltdown this past year.  And those policies were not "liberal" or hippie in nature.

[Ben]

No offense to you Ben, I know you're one of the good guys. Just out numbered there...

No worries Balog. I get just as frustrated as everyone else, especially being old enough to remember the freedoms that CA used to have, and what made it such a great state. Having been born and raised, I still choose to stay and fight -- even though my voice isn't heard much -- if only for a while longer. But if I choose to give up and leave, I just get a little irked being lumped in with the "Californians moving here and screwing our state up".

[Monkeyleg]

Don't even get me started on energy deregulation, which led to rolling blackouts and the public being "served" by such honest folk as Enron.

I don't suppose the problem is that the environmentalists won't allow offshore drilling, nor nuclear plants, but insist on windmills and solar panels, is it? Replacing that 90 mega-watt reactor with a 5 mega-watt solar panel array sounded like a good idea to me.

If you have to buy your energy from Texas and Nevada, I'm certain it will cost more.

I'm also certain that the looney laws like microstamping and fingerprinting ammo buyers cost money, and that there's thousands of laws relating to other products and services that are just as looney and costly.

Reagan's term as governor ended 34 years ago. I think you're beating Obama's "blame Bush" record for shifting responsibility.

[De Selby]

Monkeyleg,

Yeah, Reagan's term ended a long time ago, but his policies and his wing of the Republican party continued to chug right along in California politics, most faithfully with respect to economic policy.  He was the beginning, but Governors with his economic and tax policy continued right through Pete Wilson and Gray Davis.  Those are the people who fashioned the taxation and business policies the state has today.

Enron scamming the state and engineering shortages where none existed previously was the result of deregulation, not actual shortages, which would have been the case had offshore drilling been the cause of those blackouts.  Whether or not drilling offshore is a good idea is a separate debate and one I think ought to be had.  It just doesn't have anything to do with energy de-regulation, which was a failed policy in its own right that led to widespread scamming, huge price increases, and blackouts.  The "free market" in that case delivered fewer services at higher cost than the government regulated scheme.

I'm not willing to pay higher prices for inferior service out of dedication to free market principles, myself. 

[makattak]

Monkeyleg,

Yeah, Reagan's term ended a long time ago, but his policies and his wing of the Republican party continued to chug right along in California politics, most faithfully with respect to economic policy.  He was the beginning, but Governors with his economic and tax policy continued right through Pete Wilson and Gray Davis.  Those are the people who fashioned the taxation and business policies the state has today.

Enron scamming the state and engineering shortages where none existed previously was the result of deregulation, not actual shortages, which would have been the case had offshore drilling been the cause of those blackouts.  Whether or not drilling offshore is a good idea is a separate debate and one I think ought to be had.  It just doesn't have anything to do with energy de-regulation, which was a failed policy in its own right that led to widespread scamming, huge price increases, and blackouts.  The "free market" in that case delivered fewer services at higher cost than the government regulated scheme.
I'm not willing to pay higher prices for inferior service out of dedication to free market principles, myself. 

Yep, it's de-regulation that caused it.

Because that's what happens when the government "deregulates" an industry where the government still dictates what the prices for the final good is. So, companies buy "deregulated" electricity (because California WON'T produce it's own energy) but are told how much they can sell it for.

The free market made prices just too high! It isn't fair!

Of course, when you won't ALLOW companies to produce energy, FUNNY how the prices go up because there isn't enough energy.

I honestly can't beleive supposedly intelligent people think these things. Then I remember no one is taught to look beyond what they can see anymore.

"Oh look! Prices are going up and there's blackouts! It's the EVIL free market denying people power because they don't want to make money by selling people power when they need it! EVIL EVIL companies making money by not providing what people want to buy!!!11111!@"

[Gewehr98]

I don't suppose the problem is that the environmentalists won't allow offshore drilling, nor nuclear plants, but insist on windmills and solar panels, is it? Replacing that 90 mega-watt reactor with a 5 mega-watt solar panel array sounded like a good idea to me.

Monkeyleg speak true.

SS forgets, but I watched them decommission Rancho Seco, as it sat there dumping 1,100 Megawatts into the Sacramento Municipal Utilities grid.  It wasn't Reagan that shut it down - it was the Kalifornia anti-nuclear hippies.   

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957975,00.html

[HankB]

Just came back from Kali, spent my time on the northern fringes of LA. My impressions based on one week . . .

1. Sales taxes are a bit higher than in TX.
2. Gasoline prices are sharply higher (50-60 cents more per gallon.).
3. Grocery store prices are higher.
4. Roads are in MUCH worse condition.
5. An awful lot of the people I encountered (grocery clerks, restaurant waiters) barely spoke English.

Other folks I dealt with were unhappy with the high taxation (Kali has a nasty state income tax) and were also unhappy with how the money was being spent. (Not enough being directed towards benefitting tax payers, as opposed to tax users.) Funny thing is, none of them blamed Reagan or Bush - imagine that!

[roo_ster]

Years ago, a buddy and I were watching some news show with some lefy spouting off.  He mentioned how Reagan had cut funding for some lefty lickspittle program.

But what caught our attention was the way he said it with so much bitterness and the emphasis on the first syllable: RAAAY-gunnn

Since then, whenever one of us mentiones some adverse circumstance or happening, the other is likely to say, "I blame RAY-gunnn!"

Ronald Reagan: fistful for the lefty community.

[De Selby]

Monkeyleg speak true.

SS forgets, but I watched them decommission Rancho Seco, as it sat there dumping 1,100 Megawatts into the Sacramento Municipal Utilities grid.  It wasn't Reagan that shut it down - it was the Kalifornia anti-nuclear hippies.  

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957975,00.html

I lived there at that time and saw it too - but there weren't rolling blackouts until Enron was doing its "marketable energy" thing a decade later.

Edit: Obviously, that doesn't mean that closing the nuke plants was a good idea.  Sure, the anti-nuke types have done damage.  So have the anti-gun types.  But CA and its economy were never run by hippies, so the blame for overall mess doesn't lay with them.

[MicroBalrog]

The Californian power management system is so broken it's not even funny.

To blame underregulation in this matter is beyond laughable.

[RocketMan]

The Californian power management system is so broken it's not even funny.

To blame underregulation in this matter is beyond laughable.

Agreed.

[Ben]

I lived there at that time and saw it too - but there weren't rolling blackouts until Enron was doing its "marketable energy" thing a decade later.

Edit: Obviously, that doesn't mean that closing the nuke plants was a good idea.  Sure, the anti-nuke types have done damage.  So have the anti-gun types.  But CA and its economy were never run by hippies, so the blame for overall mess doesn't lay with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

Also, I'll take Jerry "hippie" Brown for $1000 Alex.

[HankB]

But CA and its economy were never run by hippies, so the blame for overall mess doesn't lay with them.

Never?

Really?

Wasn't former Kali governor Jerry Brown nicknamed "Moonbeam" for his far-out ideas? Things like the "California Office of Appropriate Technology" and boosting funding for the California Arts Council by 1300%? Vetoing the death penalty? Appointing Rose Bird to CA's Supreme Court? An adherent of "Buddhist Economics?"

No hippies indeed.  

[makattak]

No no no, you don't understand!

The liberals can't raise taxes easily enough there!

Taxes aren't as high as they want them to be, so OBVIOUSLY it's the fault of the conservatives.

The problem for California is that the citizens aren't taxed enough. Just like the problem for America.

Our economy is OBVIOUSLY falling apart because we haven't taxed it enough. That's how you spur growth- TAXES!