Letter to the Editor from Steve Lamb, Altadena
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Gov. Jerry Brown is not yet in office, yet he has already announced his proposed budget that will severely cut benefits to the State of California’s poor, unemployed, and ill, while taxing further corporate business. Some in the press have called this a bold proposal. It is not .It is more of the same blame and punish the “other” as governance.
California government needs more revenue and it needs to spend less. It should not be cutting aid to societies most vulnerable to spend less nor should it be taxing California business into other states. There are two more simple and equitable, but politically more difficult answers to these problems.
On the revenue side, we could re instate the car tax at the pre Arnold Schwarzenegger level. This single act would almost wipe away the ENTIRE yearly shortfall. The car tax is basically a luxury tax that taxes newer more expensive cars more than older vehicles used by the less ostentatious for transportation. The increased tax would have almost no effect on the working poor and would more heavily tax the more well off. Because car taxes are not all due on the same day every year there is less of an impact to the consumer economy than say property taxes, and the distribution of income is more even throughout the year. We have tried the reduce the car tax experiment and it has horribly failed. We need to admit it, restore the tax and move on.
On the expenditure side, it’s time to do something serious about Public employee pensions. Over the last thirty years defined benefit pensions have all but disappeared for almost all California workers. Those defined benefit pensions that exist in the private sector pay employees about 40% of their pre retirement salaries. It is profoundly unjust to have private sector workers who basically have no pension pay for the lavish retirement benbefits of public employees who in many instances receive 80-95% of their pre retirement income in pension and some at higher levels even double dip. We need to look the State Public Employees Unions in the eye and say “enough is enough”.
There are several things we can do to reform Public employee pensions. The most easy would be to cap all public employee pensions at 50% of the average of the last five years employed (still 25% more generous than the private sector) and allow public employees ONE pension ONLY that covers all of their employment in the public sector. No more double and triple dipping. Another and more interesting proposal would be to limit public employee pensions to 110% of the average of all pensions of all workers employed in teh state of California. This would encourage public employee unions with all of their political muscle, to advocate for the restoration of defined benefit pensions for all of California’s private sector employees, a great social good whereby these public employees would be using their muscle to actually benefit the People of the State of California.
These are the kind of more radical ideas one hopes to see Gov. Jerry Brown attempt as he takes office.
Sincerely
Steve Lamb
Altadena, Ca.