PramTT

"Their union cut a deal with Davis and when
they helped him get elected , he gave them astonomical wage increases
some guards make close to 150K a year"

Plus they can retire at 50 and mantain 90% of their salary

With those kind of decisions, no wonder California is broke

ca993twin

I just did the math... on an original purchase price in 1996 of $110,000, reducing that by 10% for seven years gives a valuation of $52,612. Using 3.75% as the registration rate, I can expect a bill for about $1972 from Arnie. Can this be true? I believe that Scott Mellor already got his registration for his 1996TT, and it was closer to $1200. While that's still pretty steep, its starting to sound like a bargain.

Can Arnie really repeal that fee? Or was that just the usual campaign BS? My guess is that Arnie just stepped into a bigger steaming pile than he realized, and his simple "fixes" just aren't going to work.

Poon

hasta la vista, car tax!

Greg H.

We'll see what Ahhnold can accomplish. Personally, I'm betting the first priority for the Democratically controlled legislature is to make him look bad.

Greg H.

FlyYellow

i'm hoping they come up with a system that makes logical sense rather than taxing based on value of the car. the two big ones i would advocate would be:

a) base it on emissions -> therefore the more emissions the more you pay
b) base it on weight -> therefore ahhnold's hummer would cost him a pretty penny.

in both cases the more pollutants you emit the more it cost the state to keep the air clean and the more you weigh the more wear & tear you have on the roads.

Cheers,
Boris

OldGuy

Greg I agreed with you right away but then I started thinking about it.
IF the Democrats play hardball with Ahhnald then they are going to
look bad next year. They could lose the state. If they play along
and give Ahhnald some slack the populus loses its head of steam
it built up against the current status quo and the people think the
way they did in 2000 and they (Dems) keep the state.
You may be right but I dont know what they are going to do! Anyway
you look at it though, its going to be interesting!

CP

The state's employee headcount went up by 34% during Davis' watch. These are unionized state workers and uniformly vote democratic. In the flush years, Davis had the $$$ to pay these 'employees' and garner their 'support'. Now the surplus is gone, but the payroll persists. That's why we have such a high deficit. Now, what does every prudent CEO do when the revenue does not carry the payroll? DOWN-SIZE. That's a simple solution for Arnold to cut the deficit. Why does Grey never mention this solution? Any one laid off is one less vote for him, so why would he kill his own voting block. They conveniently hide behind the rheteric that we cannot cut programs for schools, wellfare etc. We are not saying cut the programs, just cut the bloated bureaucy servicing these programs. I don't believe we need 34% more state employees to serve us well.

Today, CBS news announced that 3,000 Davis 'appointees' were given their walking papers. These are cronies that Davis stashed in various boards and commissions as payment for prior favors. Any business man can tell you the function of a State boards or commissions - to create problems for business to solve so they can perpetuate their own existance.
So now in the first day of the turnover, we have 3,000 less pigs feeding at our state's trough. I say good riddence.

Another vent item and I'm off the soap box. CA spend BILLIONS on education and we are ALWAYS at the bottom of the ladder for $/pupil. It only means that the number of kids in school are HUGE. Looking at the birth rate of CA residences (lowest in the nation), you'd say where are all these kids coming from? Simple answer - Mexico. Yes, we are perpetually short on education $$ as we are actually educating all the Mexican kids, many illegal, in our schools. The schools hired more teachers, created bi-lingual programs, etc. to serve this special need. They gladly do it, beacause it adds head-count and thus, strength of the teacher's unions. Will we ever have enough $$ for children education in CA? For legal kids, more than enough. In reality, NEVER!! Doubt me, just check the birth rate in Mexico.

If you ask me can a governer actually ruin a state's economy? Just look at Grey's record. I'm off my soap-box now. Sigh....

CP

JasonO

Just a quick butt in here, but I just reregistered my car in Washington and it was 35 bucks...

mlincoln

Hello all,

Here in Utah, we used to have a 1.7% (approximately, varied slightly by county) car tax each and every year, plus a $35 annual licensing fee. As I understand it, this is quite close to the California value-based tax. In the mid-1990's the Utah law was changed to impose a ca. $150/year uniform fee (irregardless of age or value) plus the licensing fee. When I was a starving medical resident, and drove (in addition to a 1966 912) a 120k+ chevy. Therefore, I paid the minimum $35 plus a dozen bucks or so on each car.

The law was changed in the mid 1990's because more wealthy people with multiple and/or expensive cars disliked paying the property tax. They thought that people with lower incomes, like I used to be, should carry a "proportionate" tax burden, by which they meant equal burden. Therefore the legislature changed the laws.

I don't know much about California. However, I understand the ca. 3x increase in the car tax was very abrupt and unprecedented. Perhaps a more conservative rise would have been better tolerated. I don't have a problem with progressive taxes, as long as they are not confiscatory (e.g., the 90% marginal Federal Income Tax rate in the early 1960's...after Eisenhower and Kennedy). The California proposal, abrupt as it was, would have simply raised California's tax to about what Utah's used to be. Perhaps this California rise was needed in part because California's initiatives irrationally mandate spending increases and tax decreases (e.g., property tax decreases).

Best, Mike

98993c2s

I'm glad I'm in Texas. No income tax, and car registration is about $60...oh...and no emissions testing where I live, either.

lexpilot

C2S,
You must have a problem paying to educate the undocumented Mexican kids. How does Texas pay for it.? A big sales tax ? Here in Oregon the capped rate on income tax is 9% of adjusted gross income. But we have no sales tax. These last 2 years are the first ever that Oregon had a revenue shortfall instead of an excess.

Terry Adams

Just got my CA renewal notice, $586 due 24 Dec on what by then will be a 6 year old 100K+ mile car. Roads and freeways full of potholes and bone jarring expansion joints. Boris has it right, to base the tax on weight and emissions. Anybody in CA watched the CA Govt channel on cable? Your 11% state top income tax rate at waste.

98993c2s

Sales tax was increased from 3% to 6.25% statewide in about 1983...it was supposed to be 'temporary' to help with the budget shortfall at the time...yeah right. It's still at that level, with additional municipal sales taxes depending on where you are. It's 8.25% where I live. Cars are 6.5%. I buy most high dollar items mail order and avoid most of these sales taxes. If one knows what they are doing, it's pretty easy to avoid the sales tax on cars, too...it's illegal but easy. I know someone who recently registered a $32K auto purchase but only paid tax as if it were a $1500 deal...

ca993twin

Mike,

Don't get me wrong, because I am going to have to fork over a PILE of dough for the 3x car registration fees, but... the increase puts the fees back where they were about 5 years ago or so. When the state budget looked pretty rosy, the fees were reduced to 1/3 with the caveat that they were to be restored to their full amount if the state budget went into the crapper. Which it did. My best guess is that Arnie will not be able to get it reversed... the budget is simply too out of balance. Just more campaign BS to the already upset population. California has many problems, and Grey Davis was one of them. But to lay this whole thing at his door is stupid. There is a much larger national recession going on.

mlincoln

Hi, I actually agree with you Steve (I think). Public monies have to come from somewhere, and more monies are needed in a heavily industrialized/urbanized place (e.g., California) than a rural place (e.g., Wyoming). Its fine for all of us on this list and elsewhere to complain about "high taxes", but then don't ask for your street to be repaired, or your town's industrial park to be subsidized. At the same time, I think that there is often no good system (other than politics) to prioritize expenditure programs. In California, as I understand things, about 90% of the state budget is mandated by voter initiatives and required programs (people wanting more), but taxes are restricted by some of the same voter initiatives. I've noticed that in the states with lower taxes of one type (e.g., car, income), there are higher taxes of another (e.g., sales). Difficult times make it all worse, of course.