Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Ahnie's Trojan Hummer

Santa Cruz, California's Assembymember, John Laird says:

I did research on where taxes come from and where services go in California. The 20 counties that have the highest per capita tax contribution happen to be coastal [blue counties] and the 20 that have the highest usage of some of the service programs happen to be inland [red counties].

And it's ironic politically, because the people on the coast would probably be willing to pay more taxes to get services but the people that are getting more services are saying "taxes are too high, we don't want to pay any more." There'a a real strange juxtaposition in that dynamic...
Notations in brackets are mine.

Research has shown that blue states pay more to the federal government and more of that money is disbursed to red states, so California counties are a microcosm of the federal model. It's the red states (Repugs) who complain the most about taxes, while we blue staters are funding their programs.

Regarding education funding in California, Laird also said:

The Governor’s proposal is a Trojan Hummer. Inside the Governor’s Trojan Hummer is a full-scale attack on future investment in our schools. It takes $15,000 from every classroom and creates even more uncertainty for local school districts. And ironically, given what the Governor has been saying, the proposal actually makes auto-pilot spending worse and makes schools more vulnerable in economic crises.