Ok, in my local elections, there’s a 1% increase in the sales tax rate on the ballot (the rate would go from 7.75% to 8.75%) that would go into the city’s general fund.
The stated reason for needing the funds is upgrading city infrastructure.
I’m undecided on voting for it.
My primary reason to not vote for it is that sales taxes are regressive. It seems like there ought to be a way to pay for these things that gets the rich (and there are a lot of rich people here) to pay more of it.
But there are a few points in favor of voting for it:
I am accepting at face value the city’s need to have more money.
The city council member I generally agree with the least is opposed to it.
This is in California, so the city might be pretty constrained in the sorts of ways they can raise revenue. The main one being that they can’t increase property taxes, which I think is probably a better solution, and is the way this would be paid for in most places.
What say you? I have to mail my ballot by tomorrow, so, maybe “need answer fast” applies
In general, it would depend on the details. But I assume you have reasons for your three points in favor, which I’ll count as “the details”. So assuming I had reached the same conclusion I’d probably vote for it.
But I’d be annoyed about it. Regressive sales taxes do bother me a bit, but property taxes have their own set of issues. I prefer taxes more closely aligned to an ability to pay, not based on the value of difficult to liquidate assets.
But that isn’t the main reason. The main reason is that I consider ballot initiatives asking for tax increases (or decreases) to be a symptom of a broken system. In an ideal world we’d elect competent representatives with staff and the detailed information on hand to make sensible decisions about things like infrastructure spending versus revenue. The direct voters have the least ability of anyone to make such a specific, detailed decision. Can they really say that the city needs a 1% increase in sales tax or not? Did they look at the infrastructure reports? Did they do an analysis of revenue and correctly identify the ability to move other less critical things around?
If the representatives in general are making decisions that don’t align with the voters you vote for better representatives. You don’t micromanage them.
So I’m always tempted to vote “no” on ballot initiatives on general. But every single time I can’t bring myself to do that, because I don’t think I’m effectively sending the intended message, namely “I don’t like ballot initiatives” versus “I don’t agree with this specific action”.
I also am tempted to vote no on ballot initiatives as well, but in this case, their hands may be tied.
I know that in the state of California, most tax increases have to be approved both by the legislature and the voters via ballot initiative. It appears to me that that applies to local tax increases as well. For what it’s worth, the city council approved putting this on the ballot by a 5-2 vote, so if I am correct that they are required to put it to the voters, then maybe I should vote for it as a vote of confidence in the city council.
As another Californian, my policy is to always vote against ballot initiatives, unless the measure is required to be put to the voters. If it’s true that this tax increase required a vote (and that is a common requirement), then you just need to vote your conscience. What is your feeling about your city? Could it use some infrastructure upgrades?
Very, very few cities have their own income tax. Generally speaking, cities and counties get their money from only three sources: sales tax; property tax; and fees for specific services, such as building permits and the like.
Yep. And that appeals to me. I live in the City of Santa Barbara but I don’t actually spend much there other than restaurants. Most of the items that I buy are in Goleta or online.
This election is for mayor, city council and this one ballot initiative. It is a 100% by mail election.
To be clear, 7.25% is CA State Sales tax, 0.50% is Santa Barbara County Tax. The extra 1% would be the new city tax.
I’d vote no because i’m opposed to off off year elections. They’re always used to slide something by that would likely be voted down in a regular even year election year.
I would want to know what sort of infrastructure spending they are proposing. Is it something that really needs to be done but has been put off due to lack of funds? Or is this going to end up as some sort of accounting trick and nothing will get done infrastructure wise?
How much of your current sales tax goes to the city already? In our city, the sales tax breaks down as follows:
California State 7.25%
San Joaquin County 0.50%
Stockton 1.25%
Total 9.0%.
Just to give you a comparison.
The breakdown of where the California State taxes are supposed to go is here. The SJ County tax goes to transportation and often gets used as the local match for state or federal grants. Most of the city tax is earmarked for hiring additional police officers or other safety measures. A 3/4% chunk is divided between law enforcement services, “emerging from bankruptcy”, and restoration of other City services.
Cutting to the chase, for all of the increases in the last five years, the ballot measure had to state where the money was going to go. People weren’t willing to vote for an unidentified increase in the general fund. The Santa Barbara initiative does not do this. It talks about a range of things that the money could be used for:
To maintain essential services and repair critical infrastructure including:
• Police, fire, and 911 emergency medical response;
• local streets, potholes, bridges and storm drains;
• neighborhood fire stations/public safety infrastructure;
• parks, youth/senior services;
• address homelessness;
• help retain local businesses;
• support other general services.
But it doesn’t require that it go to any of those places. It’s unattached money. And that’s quite a grab-bag of wishes, there. I’d vote no, personally, just because there will be no accountability.
Some cities in my state , Massachusetts have their own meal tax on top of the sales tax . So I have to pay 2 taxes when I go out to eat. The city said they’re using the extra money to repair sidewalks and streets . :dubious: A road was only half done over so it a half ass job . I have live right next to tax free New Hampshire and when our sales taxes went up NH businesses increase . Home Depots in NH said this was great for them .
Then I’d ask the your mayor and alderman (city council) if they couldn’t save some money by moving the off off year election to the regular electoral schedule. I despise the city of Chicago’s weird elections that occur in the middle of winter during an off off year.
I am also voting for Murillo, although I also liked Martinez.
As far as the tax not going toward specific earmarked purposes, I think that’s fine. Probably better than a specifically-earmarked initiative tax. The accountability is in our regular city council elections. Budgeting by ballot initiative is terrible, in my opinion.
I’m now leaning toward voting for the tax increase. I think a property tax would be a better way to fund things, but Prop 13 says no.
I don’t think once a year is too often to have elections, and I can see the rationale for doing local ones out of cycle with national ones.
And this is a fully by-mail election. They mail you a ballot, you mail it back. Not particularly expensive to do, and it’s so easy that anyone who doesn’t vote clearly just doesn’t care.
As someone who visits frequently, I’m all for it. Most places in California (and elsewhere) have high hotel taxes since tourists don’t vote.
Just please don’t fix 101 while I’m trying to drive on it. (Though that gets paid for by the state.)
Almost everywhere in California needs tons of infrastructure work, which is getting done now that the financial crisis is over. But there is still a backlog.
