[quote=CA renter]
From the Tax Foundation (hardly a hotbed of liberal politics), you’ll see that the govt share of per-capita income was around 11.8% in 1977, and it’s 11.24% in 2010. That’s the total going to CA and local municipalities AND what’s going to other states (we also subsidize those in the “red” states who fight against paying their share of the tax burden). If you look just at the local/state burden, it was ~9.08% in 1977, and 9.0% in 2010. So, considering the fact that we have expanded services, as I’ve mentioned above, the government is actually working more efficiently than they were in 1977.
Good government should work more effectively than it did 30+ years ago. The problem remains that taxes come from GDP. Based on your linked article taxes as a percentage of income are relatively high. You argue that we’ve expanded services compared to then so we should raise taxes. I argue that we should reduce service to those that we can afford. It’s also pretty obvious that over time government budgets have deferred mainteance and other costs in order to expand the percentage dedicated to salaries and benefits for employees. Just look at the San Diego unified school district where salaries and benefits over the past 10 years have expanded faster than revenues.
My major point is public sector workers have maxed out the expansion of wages and benefits without harder political choices. They already take 90+% of most public sector budgets. They’ve already increased taxes to the high end of the historical average. They’ve already made the most painful public layoffs. They are really out of options to continue to expand wages and benefits at a rate greater than the economic growth.
Is it that you can’t see that fact or you chose not to believe it. You really think the current crop of college kids that have been screwed by the bankers and screwed by debt are going to think they have a moral obligation to pay those public sector pensions? That’s the question that matters isn’t it.
