Reply #33: Here is a little incite.

[county worker]

I work for a county government in the alcohol, drug and mental health services. As you know state and local governments must have a balanced budget. Before we can spend a dollar we have to have a dollar in revenue.

Our revenue comes from Medicare, Medi-Cal (which is Medicaid past through the state government) which are federal sources. We get some Federal government grants for drug programs and homeless programs. Then we get money from sales tax and vehicle license fees. Also we get state grants which are federal block grants. To raise our revenue you would have to give us a bigger share of the federal taxes passed through the state and direct payments. Also you would need to increase spending to raise sales tax or increase the sales tax rate.

It would not be hard on mostly everyone if we took the money spent on our two wars and turned over to the states for social programs. If we raised the sales tax a percent or two we could use that.

So in my opinion the problem comes from poor priority choices.

Why aren't there thousands of people marching in the streets demanding a change in priorities? It isn't the wealthy it's us sitting here typing our complaints on a board. Who will hear us?