Reject the proposed CA sales tax on food | Dear California voter:
Clearly, California’s tax system needs reform. Right now, our reliance on personal income tax revenue leaves our budget in a dangerous feast-or-famine cycle, and the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget has hamstrung the state further.
But the recommendations made yesterday by the Commission on the 21st Century Economy (COTCE) would take California in the wrong direction, creating a tax system that would benefit the super-rich at the expense of poor and middle-class Californians.
That’s why I’m asking you to sign a petition to our legislative leaders, urging them to reject the Commission’s proposals. California needs real tax reform — not a plan that would tax groceries to offset tax cuts for millionaires.
Sign our Petition HERE ... to the California Legislature today — and urge lawmakers to reject the Commission’s misguided tax reform recommendations.
The Commission’s recommendations are complex: Eliminating the state’s sales tax and corporate income tax, flattening the top brackets of the personal income tax to benefit the wealthy at the expense of poor and middle-class families, and supporting an unknown and untested new tax on business net receipts.
Don’t just take my word this is a bad idea. Here’s what the experts say:
“The recommendations of the Commission on the 21st Century Economy upend our current progressive tax system,” said Betty Yee, Chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization. “After a decade of stagnant wages and a year of layoffs and pay cuts, the last thing we need is to shift the tax burden to ordinary Californians to benefit the wealthiest.”
The Commission’s recommendations would amount to “a massive shift in the way state government is financed from the very wealthy to middle-income taxpayers,” according to Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project. “This is taxing groceries to finance tax cuts for millionaires and taxing child care so oil companies don’t have to pay a corporate income tax.”
It’s a “flat-wrong flatter-tax plan” under which “millionaires would save an average of $109,000 a year. Taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year would save $4,” wrote noted columnist Peter Schrag. He added, “This is not a typo.”
The Commission’s plan isn't right for California. I hope you’ll join experts like State Board of Equalization Chairwoman Betty Yee and California Budget Project Executive Director Jean Ross in opposing it.
Peace and friendship,
John Burton
Chair, California Democratic Party
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