Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Who'd have thought?

Yes, this is remarkable.  The Wall Street Journal notes, with no criticism to speak of, that a Governor who I'm pretty sure wingnuts have longed derided as about as Left wing as Castro has brought California into a very healthy budget position without killing the economy.   How?  By taxing the rich:
Buoyed by tax increases passed under his administration and a strong economy, Mr. Brown said Wednesday that the state is projecting a $6.1 billion surplus for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The governor proposed socking most of the money away in a rainy-day fund whose creation he pushed for in 2014. Nearly 70% of the state’s projected revenue of about $135 billion next fiscal year is derived from personal income taxes, according to the governor’s office.
As the tweet says:

Update:  I thought "should I be skeptical of the claim that the taxes really were on the rich?  Did the whole population suffer?   So, Googling the topic, I see it was pretty well targetted to the rich:
The measure creates three new personal income tax brackets for rich residents and adds a quarter-cent to the sales tax. The higher tax rates, which hit single filers making $250,000 and up and married taxpayers earning at least $500,000, last for seven years, and push the top tax rate to 12.3% for filers earning $500,000 and above, or $1 million per couple. It is effective starting with the 2012 tax year.
The sales tax hike, which brings that levy to 7.5%, starts Jan. 1 and lasts for four years.

The wealthiest 1% of Californians -- those with annual incomes of $533,000 or more -- will shoulder nearly 79% of the tax increase, according to the California Budget Project, a research group that endorsed the proposition. They will see their taxes rise by 1.1% of their income, while the bottom four-fifths of the state's residents will see an increase of between 0.1% and 0.2% of their incomes.

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