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Californians may tax the rich more to subsidise electric cars
- llampx 4y ago
- rhacker 4y agoPeople should know the CA govt is full of democrats that don't want to do ANYTHING to lower gas prices. They want the gas prices to be $100 per gallon. Ask them directly.
- egberts1 4y agoHow’s that mental health tax on the rich doing so far, uh? Yeah, I’m talking to California legislators and governor. Any new mental hospitals? Mmmm, I didn’t think so. No different than a California gas tax or California Lottery to Education Fund, it goes elsewhere than it was politically intended for … as usual.
- season2episode3 4y agoIf you click through to the article, you will find that the governor is against the proposal. Take from that what you will, and not denying the existence of corruption in this one-party state government political machine, but the editorialized title in this hacker news post is really misleading.
- egberts1 4y ago“But you will see a measurable decline” of homelessness. Too bad, California mental health (or should I say, millionaires’) money well misspent.
- rhacker 4y agoCalifornia legislators keep "finding money" that wasn't account for and somehow are allowed to spend it without repercussions. It's very disgusting.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoTwo points: Well, if you're talking to the governor, as it relates to the topic of the article, the article starts with how he's in TV advertisements against this proposition, so not sure what your point is. This article, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-10/california-proposition-63-mental-health-money https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-10/californ..., provides a much fairer overview in my opinion of "where the money went" than just "where are the new mental hospitals".
- datalopers 4y agoTax the the rich to give more to the richest man in the world. Good strategy.
- bpodgursky 4y agoIf you believe that will be the outcome, it sounds like an opportunity for you to buy $TSLA.
- datalopers 4y agoThat's already been the literal outcome over the past decade. Tesla's profit comes from two places: 1) government subsidies and 2) selling ZEV credits
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- s3r3nity 4y agoAt the federal level they instead opted to side with union special interests, and therefore instead give those subsidies to union shops like Ford. Therefore it's likely Tesla wouldn't benefit as much as you might suspect...but either way it still is corrupt.
- enragedcacti 4y agoThere are no unionization requirements in the EV credit as passed, only requirements about how much of various components of the vehicle are manufactured in the US. This was still a win for US union workers against foreign manufacturers but Tesla has just as much of an opportunity to benefit as Ford or GM.
- throw__away7391 4y agoThis is great. It seems like the two things California really needs right now are more taxes and more cars.
- amluto 4y agoI’d rather see a CA constitutional amendment outlawing special purpose taxes. Define a reasonable tax system, put the taxes into the general fund, and spend the general fund in useful ways. (And while I’m dreaming, maybe a consortium of environmentalists should band together to repeal CEQA, which is a reasonable contender for the most environmentally damaging thing CA has done in recent memory.)
- IX-103 4y agoOh dear. Have you talked to an economist about this idea? From what I gathered, most economists think that taxes should only be specifically targeted. That is, the government should tax things that they want to reduce.
- amluto 4y agoI’m not suggesting that targeting the tax should be banned. I’m suggesting that targeting the revenue should be banned. Want to tax rich people an extra 1.3%? Sure, but just change the tax brackets for that — don’t call it a mental health tax.
- notacoward 4y ago> most economists think that taxes should only be specifically targeted Pigovian taxes ("tax bads not goods") are just about nobody's sole basis for taxation, and many oppose them altogether. Can you substantiate your claim, or was the caricature intentional?
- zackmorris 4y agoBe careful what you wish for. Idaho (where I live) has a balanced budget rule: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/projects/state-fiscal-briefs/idaho https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... The legislature must pass a balanced budget, but it can carry a deficit over into the following year. In practice, they use that to deny nearly all discretionary spending, and even spending that other states consider crucial: https://www.idahoednews.org/news/nea-idaho-ranks-last-in-per-pupil-spending-again/ https://www.idahoednews.org/news/nea-idaho-ranks-last-in-per... And then do odd things like raise education funding while cutting corporate taxes: https://apnews.com/article/education-tax-reform-legislature-brad-little-4b31a0e2414733efcb0ec9039d3282dd https://apnews.com/article/education-tax-reform-legislature-... Which would seem fine and dandy, but if there's an economic downturn and we no longer have a budget surplus, that tax burden will fall on the backs of working people and they'll just cut education/social services/environmental protections again like they always do.
- option 4y agothis is prop 30 designed (and funded by) to benefit Lyft, not Californians.
- CameronNemo 4y agoIt was not designed by Lyft.
- rhacker 4y agoIt says it was right here: https://votenoprop30.com/get-the-facts/ https://votenoprop30.com/get-the-facts/
- CameronNemo 4y agoYeah that seems like an unbiased source. /s “It’s just false,” said Denny Zane, the founder and policy director at Move LA, a public transit advocacy group that helped develop the proposition. Lyft joined the effort to promote the proposition after environmental groups and policymakers came up with the idea, he said, but the company did not “devise” the proposition. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/14/california-proposition-30-gavin-newsom-electric-vehicles https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/14/california-p...
- kylecordes 4y agoThe migration to electric vehicles will happen, and must happen, over a couple of decades - and likely more time after that for heavy-duty use cases. And that assumes a lot of infrastructure investment along the way. Trying to go faster will generate needless and extensive backlash, cost a lot of money, and lead to a lot of unsatisfactory experiences. Somewhere along the adoption curve, electric vehicles will be cheaper than gas, and they are already (in many ways, though not range!) better than gas. Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time. If there is an irresistible urge to spend more money, spend it on infrastructure.
- bink 4y agoThis ignores the motivations for subsidizing electric vehicles, namely damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels and air pollution. There's a debate to be had about how much better EVs are for the environment but I don't think it's reasonable to ignore such things when developing public policy. For the record I voted against Prop 30.
- elzbardico 4y agoReally, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking. And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate.
- chimprich 4y ago> Really, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking There are a lot of contributors, so you have to tackle a lot of them. Transport is one of the biggies. > And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate. I despair that this idea keeps coming up, even on forums such as this. It's not like this is an original idea. There have been a bunch of studies that blow this concept out of the water. It's far more expensive to deal with the results of climate change than to avert it. There's also the huge human cost of not dealing with it, and the issue that you don't fix something by kicking the can down the road. The problem is only going to get worse the longer you leave it. It's like dealing with your house being on fire by taking your jacket off.
- ReptileMan 4y agoOn the other any kind of electric subsidies usually benefit the well off... they are regressive. So this is a case of one hand takes the other gives.
- cbsmith 4y agoYou might want to check up on California's electric subsidies...
- ReptileMan 4y agoPeople that buy brand new electric cars or put solar roofs are more often than not well off
- cbsmith 4y agoOkay, let's say that's 100% true. Is it also accurate to say that "people who are eligible for California EV subsidies are more often than not well off"? No, it's not. It turns out, the more well off you are, the less your eligible for subsidies, and the vast majority of subsidies go to people who are definitely not the people who'd be taxed by this proposal.
- _chu1 4y agoLol what a fallacy
- CalRobert 4y agoIf only we were hellbent on building communities where you don't need to get in a car every time you leave your house. California (outside of a few astronomically expensive city and town centers) is a hellscape of stroads and parking lots as far as the eye can see. There's a better way to design cities and towns. Yes, we need electric cars, but we also need fewer cars, and every NIMBY fighting tooth and nail against allowing people to live close to jobs, amenities, public transport, and bike infra is responsible for accelerating our present crisis.
- arsome 4y agoIt's a matter of preferences, I for one far prefer living as distant from people as possible, "stroads" as you call them are often the most convenient places to shop for anyone who doesn't wish to live in an urban center.
- coryrc 4y agoGreat, but don't use laws to forbid people building what GP and I like.
- Dawnyhf5 4y ago
- seneca 4y ago> Well if you like sneezing of buffets, that’s very strange and anti-social and frankly your preference shouldn’t factor in any decision making because your tendencies are unhealthy in many ways. Responses like this are the most important replies. This is someone saying what the others are thinking, but without the guile. "Saying the quiet part out loud", that is. What it always comes down to with these types, "We know better than you. Shut up and do what you're told."
- enragedcacti 4y agoIt's a bit tart but it isn't actually saying "We know better than you. Shut up and do what you're told." What it is saying is that if you don't want to be a part of a community then that community has every right to make decisions without you. You can want to stroll in once a week to the Mega-Mart on a 45-mph six-lane road through the center of town, and the people who live in the town can want to walk safely, breathe clean air, and live close enough together to foster a sense of community with their neighbors. You're free to live in the sticks but when it comes down to it you are a visitor who isn't invested in the wellbeing of the community and that should be reflected in how much political capital you wield there.
- dqpb 4y agoMoney is decision-making-tokens. I believe the best people to use those tokens are the people who earned them. But, when a huge portion of societies decision tokens are sitting idle in a few accounts, it calls into question whether the holders are capable of making decisions, or if they are just going be a bottleneck.
- elzbardico 4y agoIn practice, given how expensive things are in CA, and how much you need to make just to have a roof in a somewhat decent neighborhood not hours away from your work: Tax the middle-class to subsidize the rich.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoI'm tempted to think of things as a 0 sum game or positive sum - but California really seems to be a negative sum game. California was pretty nice when I was 22 and didn't mind living in a studio apartment. I honestly think California is a negative sum game at this point. It seems like hardly anyone is winning, and most people are losing - most of them massively. I guess the people living entirely off handouts are winning? Maybe 22 year-olds that get paid a bunch of money to work at FAANG and live in studio apartments? It's not even clear to me that the majority of Prop 13 recipients are benefiting that much. You only really benefit if you sell and leave the state. And, yes, some people are doing that - but not anywhere near a majority.
- theorymeltfool 4y agoTheir economist incentives are crazy backwards, and they're going to continue to bleed residents and industry. If the film industry decides to relocate, they may never recover.
- cbsmith 4y agoHuh what? The entire entertainment industry (which includes food services) contributes just over $100 billion to California's $3.3 trillion GDP. I think California can recover from the film industry leaving town.
- justapassenger 4y agoMost EVs have wait times in many months to years. There's 0 reason to subsidize them at this point.
- macspoofing 4y agoCan California's electrical grid even handle more electric cars?
- tshibley 4y agohttps://archive.ph/5NQWH https://archive.ph/5NQWH
- Zhenya 4y agohttps://archive.ph/5NQWH https://archive.ph/5NQWH
- WalterBright 4y agoIf California succeeds in driving the wealthier out of the state, then who is going to pay the bill?
- kjkjadksj 4y agoWhy would the wealthy leave when they enjoy some of the most favorable property tax terms in the entire country in the strongest job market in the entire country
- jamiequint 4y agoBecause most of the wealthy people are not physically tied to any state for residency purposes, and most of them don't run CA-only based businesses, and because property tax is a smaller expense than income tax.
- jedberg 4y agoThat only applies to about the top 20 families in the state. The rest of the wealthy people like it here because of the weather and services the state provides as well as the strong markets. Keep in mind that VPs at FAANG make more than $2M a year (which is where this tax kicks in). A VP at Google could pick up and go to another state, and some have, but most of them like it here.
- jamiequint 4y agoDo you have any data to back up what you're saying, or is that entirely anecdotal? If that only applies to the top 20 families in the state then I seem to know at least half of them personally, which seems statistically unlikely. Regardless of whether wealthy people like CA because of the weather or services the state provides (although I can't think of a single wealthy person who cares about the services that California provides), there's a tradeoff between those things and cost. If you increase the marginal cost of living in California by 4.5% some people will leave. Particularly those folks like startup founders or early employees who expect to earn the bulk of their net worth on a single transaction that will be taxed at the top marginal rate.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoWhy does no one want to subsidize ebikes? If they do they only knock off a few hundred while electric car subsidies are often in the several thousands. We could fully subsidize like a half dozen ebikes for what people sometimes get in electric car subsidies.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago>Why does no one want to subsidize ebikes? Ripping around on a fat tire 2000W Alibaba special is not a lifestyle that the bulk of the people driving this discussion hate only slightly less than the ICE status quo. Easier to say nothing and focus on the issues where there are consensus than address that gorilla.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoIt still makes no sense why the government doesn't just subsidize all evs equally. I understand that riding a bike is a lot to ask for some people, but money is cheap for our government so you might as well offer a more reasonable subsidy.
- throw03172019 4y agoDidn’t CA have a surplus? Doesn’t CA already have the highest tax brackets for the high earners?
- minerva23 4y agoYes, CA has a budget surplus. It also has constitutional spending limits that prevent the use of the surplus and this prop partially circumvents those spending limits. No, CA has a regressive tax system (considering sales tax and low property taxes for generational wealth and corporations). The generational wealth component was recently addressed, but was accompanied by another property tax break for the rich.
- Zhenya 4y agoOf course this only taxes the w2/1099 suckers, while all the supporters are driving their income through trusts, capital gains and corporations.
- bradgessler 4y agoA few things I don't see mentioned here, but should be said to see where the conversation goes. 1. Lyft funded the collection of signatures to get this on the ballot, to the tune of $8.5m. 2. About 10 years ago, CA's top tax rate was ~10.5%. A measure was passed "temporarily" during a recession to increase that rate to ~13.5%. Then another proposition was passed to extend this "temporary measure". 3. CA currently has a $100b surplus. —- Ok, time for my personal opinion. The reasons for these increases are obviously not to dig CA out of a tax revenue deficit. They've accomplished that. There are other factors at play.
- jmyeet 4y agoGreater taxes on income are well-intentioned but largely ineffective given that the truly rich don't have an income. They have unrealized capital gains that they borrow against. What California should do is repeal the great disaster that was (and still is) Prop 13. The article glosses over it (calling it a "fiscal toll" without saying much else). This is one of those rare situations where California should be more like Texas, namely: 1. Commercial property should be reassed and taxed accordingly at least every 5 years if not every year. Currently the tax rate that Disney pays in Anaheim was set in the 1960s and hasn't changed. A lot of commercial property is this way because it's passed around in LLCs so it doesn't trigger a reassessment because there is no transfer; 2. "Kicking old people out of their homes" is used as an argument against this. You can achieve this goal, if it's one you want, without giving billionaires generational preferential tax treatment. In Texas, for example, the state can defer pdroperty taxes until the sale of the house for the elderly. This gives you the choice of downsizing to save money or staying put until after you die; 3. Stop the inheritance of preferential tax rates (which happens now); 4. Make property tax relatively high percentage wise while essentially eliminating state income tax on those earning less than $100,000 such that those earning less than $100,000 are net better off under the new system; and 5. Make propety tax largely based on land use. This means a $2 million apartment will attract a lower tax rate than a $2 million single family house. I actually think the tides have turned and this may actually pass with voters.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoEarly in my career I lived in Redwood City and it was amazing. The weather, the potential, the people and culture, but now Silicon Valley is one big crime infested, money grubbing, spoiled, giant IBM. The area is dying, and higher taxes will only accelerate it.
- jedberg 4y agoScroll down to the donors section to see why you should vote no on Prop 30: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_30,_Tax_on_Income_Above_$2_Million_for_Zero-Emissions_Vehicles_and_Wildfire_Prevention_Initiative_(2022) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_30,_Tax_on_In... It sounds like a great idea, but Lyft wrote this law and couldn't get the state legislature to pass it, so they are trying to do an end-around the legislature. The devil is in the details. The law would tax high earners and put that money into a fund whose spending will be directed by an unelected board. Lyft would of course lobby to control that board and make sure all the money is spent on the upgrades the state had required for rideshare companies, which is their ultimate goal. Also, it is budgeting by fiat -- it sets how state revenue will be spent for the next 20 years, with no way to change it if something changes in the next 20 years. I love the idea of subsidizing electric vehicle adoption via wealth transfer, but this law is not the way to do it.
- minerva23 4y agoI agree setting tax and spending policy through the preposition process is a bad idea, but saying “no way to change it” isn’t entirely correct, right? The legislature can change it via a super majority and another prop could change it. It’s also not entirely budgeting by fiat. One of the cool things about this prop is portions of the spending don’t count against California constitutional spending limit (this prop effectively raises that limit so we can improve our infrastructure). I’m still on the fence about this prop. There seem to be good reasons to both vote it in and vote it down.
- hackeraccount 4y agoAt a certain point high rates become a tool for incumbency not a method to raise revenue i.e. if you have a loophole you don't care what the rate is.