California protest leader Steve Miller analyzes California's "budget crisis"

[Hannah Bell]

Is there money to stop the budget cuts?

There is plenty of money! California taxes corporations very lightly, while directing a huge percent of revenue to corporations. California ranks 35th in terms of business’ share of state and local taxes. Income tax for corporations seems to be a high percentage of total business tax, but this is because property tax for corporations is so low. California is 45th in the country in corporate property tax. We can shift the tax burden from people to corporations.

Why do politicians tell us the state is broke?

Both the Democrats and Republicans openly believe that securing corporate profits is more important that building a society that guarantees the basic necessities of life for working people. Working hand-in-hand with highly-paid lobbyists, they are using the crisis to insure that corporate interests are the top priority.

Are undocumented immigrants really the problem?

National and state laws reward and permit corporations to move jobs out of the country whenever they want. This well-documented destruction of job opportunities is a choice corporations make to maximize their profits. It is they, not undocumented immigrants, that eliminate jobs.

Budget Crisis

California is now in the second of five years of well-organized Budget Crises, each demanding about $20 billion in cuts. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is directing this real-life horror, aided and abetted by both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Global banking, lead by our friends on Wall Street, demand vast “austerity” cuts in order to bail out Greece. This exact process is being organized in California by the government...Even as the Governor claimed, in 2009, that he wouldn’t raise taxes, he gave corporations special tax breaks that will cost the state $2.5 billion a year. In a secret, late-night, non-public budget session - while poor children, the elderly and students were taking massive cuts - the legislature gutted the state’s corporate tax. California became the first and only state in the US to let corporations decide for themselves how they would like to be taxed (6). Even before this, less than 50% of the profitable corporations in the state paid any taxes at all...

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1568§ion=Article

[LooseWilly]

1. Commies...

right again. Funny, that.

[drm604]

2. My fear

is that California is a test run for the rest of the nation.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend