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I found fault in the student protests even though these fees are going to affect me quite a bit next semester. It seems the money being raised is being spent to

I found fault in the student protests even though these fees are going to affect me quite a bit next semester. It seems the money being raised is being spent to keep all the engineering, business, economics, and law professors around while the other majors are likely going to suffer severe cuts or flat out closure. I know for the Hacker News crowd those previous majors are likely the ones that matter most. Unfortunately, Berkeley offers a great deal of interesting classes where the professors will either leave or they will be cut. Linguistics and history to name a few personal favorites (Disclosure: I am a history major) are going to be two such classes. As much as people like to see a degree in terms of economic potential, of how much money a person can make with a degree, in the end it is about knowledge no matter what field you study. In my experience while I felt that computer science taught me a whole lot about computers, studying history has taught me a lot more about life. I am not blaming the administration for the fee increases. They might be large and bureaucratic, but they nonetheless have higher ups that they are responsible to. The real blame goes to the people of California and its legislature. All tax increases in the assembly have to be voted by a 2/3 majority while a tax decreases do not. This is near impossible as the assemblymen and assemblywomen tend to be along hardcore party lines. Further, adding Prop 13 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)#Negative_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...) has not helped at all making it near impossible. Ending Prop 13 would give the state quite a bit in revenue to continue funding higher education and fund many of the chronic deficits California faces. Unfortunately, even though the California public views higher education as an important goal they also want low taxes at the same time which is impossible to sustain (if 8 years of Bush have taught us anything). Those are opposing goals! Professor Lakoff is attempting to propose a ballot which will change the tax initiatives to majority rules. It simply reads, "All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote." It is called the California Democracy Act (http://www.californiademocracyact.com http://www.californiademocracyact.com)

lionhearted 17y ago
> Unfortunately, even though the California public views higher education as an important goal they also want low taxes at the same time which is impossible to sustain California: -Highest personal income tax in USA -Highest corporate income tax in USA -Top 5 in sales tax -Highest minimum corporate taxes per year -Generally high fees for doing anything related to the government -Highest overall revenues from taxes -Highest tax yields per citizen ... California's problem isn't low taxes.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  I see you conveniently left out California's low property taxes (0.48% of home value, on average; ranked 45th out of 50 states; see http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTaxesWhereDoesYourStateRank.aspx http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTa...) That these rates are very low is no surprise: The rate of property tax increase has been pinned by Prop 13 since the 1970s, such that these tax rates tend to lag the rate of inflation (let alone the rate of housing price inflation) over decades. [1] The side effect is to gradually push the tax burden toward income and sales taxes. As for "overall revenues from taxes": That bullet point is meaningless, since CA has the highest state population by far -- 50% higher than the second-most populous state, Texas. "Tax yields per citizen" is better (although it would certainly be nice to see a number: do you have one, with a citation, and a table of numbers for other states?) but also needs qualification: Despite its huge population, California ranks eleventh in GDP per capita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita_(nominal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_...) which is to say that Californians on average create more wealth than 80% of Americans, so naturally they can afford to spend more. And, of course, "tax yield per citizen" is a big sloppy average over everyone in the state, glossing over the shape of the tax brackets and of the income distribution. The income distribution in California is not exactly flat. And (to use a cartoon example) a hypothetical county consisting of twenty people making $50,000 per year and one millionaire will have an unusually high-looking "tax yield per citizen". --- [1] I believe they might, eventually, keep up with inflation, but in a very weird way: They only reset fully with a change in property ownership. My understanding is that if you don't move out of your house your taxes stay low, but when the house is sold it can be reassessed. So property taxes do go up at some rate, but in the same way that Monterey is gradually moving farther away from Fresno: very little for many years, but with a big jump every now and then. It makes buying and selling property very exciting, and I'm sure it provides work for accountants. Of course, I'm not sure how this applies to corporations. Given that corporations can "live" forever, it might be that real property taxes are in fact destined to shrink over time.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > I see you conveniently left out California's low property taxes California's property percentages, if memory serves, are about normal. They're artificially low because of the housing boom, not because CA assess low taxes on property. How it works: Property taxes in CA are reassessed when a home is sold. My understanding is that the argument for that is that people's property taxes don't go up each year without anything changing on their part - for instance, an elderly person who bought their home in 1990 hasn't seen their property taxes triple/quadruple as housing prices did. But California by no means is trying to have low average property taxes, it only happened as a side effect of the explosion in housing prices. > As for "overall revenues from taxes": That bullet point is meaningless, since CA has the highest state population by far -- 50% higher than the second-most populous state, Texas. It's just one bullet point among many, but that's correct. > "Tax yields per citizen" is better (although it would certainly be nice to see a number: do you have one, with a citation, and a table of numbers for other states?) Read it before, didn't find it on a quick Google, so I did by hand: CA total revenue: $249,057,158,000 CA population 2008: 36,756,666 $6,775.83 per person (includes children, elderly, unworking people, etc). So yeah, California doesn't have low taxes, and that's not the reason there's budget problems in CA. Whenever you spend more than what you take in, you're going to have budget problems, regardless of how much you take in.
anamax 17y ago
> Ending Prop 13 would give the state quite a bit in revenue to continue funding higher education and fund many of the chronic deficits California faces. No it wouldn't because local property taxes don't fund higher education and never have; higher ed has always been funded at the state level. > Ending Prop 13 would give the state quite a bit in revenue to continue funding higher education and fund many of the chronic deficits California faces. You're assuming that CA has a revenue problem. It doesn't. It spends gobs more than most other states (per capita). CA has a spending problem. That can't be solved with more revenues. > . Unfortunately, even though the California public views higher education as an important goal they also want low taxes at the same time which is impossible to sustain (if 8 years of Bush have taught us anything). Those are opposing goals! The US govt also has a spending problem. It is possible to not have a spending problem. Texas (among others) manages to have decent schools and low taxes. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,...
- gsmaverick 17y ago
  Unfortunately I only have one upvote. This is so true. What America, and many states, need is deep spending cuts, not more taxes.
- microtherion 17y ago
  > You're assuming that CA has a revenue problem. It doesn't. It spends gobs more than most other states (per capita). CA is pretty much precisely in the middle of per capita spending: http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=32&cat=1 http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=32&#...

lionhearted 17y ago

> Unfortunately, even though the California public views higher education as an important goal they also want low taxes at the same time which is impossible to sustain California: -Highest personal income tax in USA -Highest corporate income tax in USA -Top 5 in sales tax -Highest minimum corporate taxes per year -Generally high fees for doing anything related to the government -Highest overall revenues from taxes -Highest tax yields per citizen ... California's problem isn't low taxes.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
I see you conveniently left out California's low property taxes (0.48% of home value, on average; ranked 45th out of 50 states; see http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTaxesWhereDoesYourStateRank.aspx http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTa...) That these rates are very low is no surprise: The rate of property tax increase has been pinned by Prop 13 since the 1970s, such that these tax rates tend to lag the rate of inflation (let alone the rate of housing price inflation) over decades. [1] The side effect is to gradually push the tax burden toward income and sales taxes. As for "overall revenues from taxes": That bullet point is meaningless, since CA has the highest state population by far -- 50% higher than the second-most populous state, Texas. "Tax yields per citizen" is better (although it would certainly be nice to see a number: do you have one, with a citation, and a table of numbers for other states?) but also needs qualification: Despite its huge population, California ranks eleventh in GDP per capita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita_(nominal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_...) which is to say that Californians on average create more wealth than 80% of Americans, so naturally they can afford to spend more. And, of course, "tax yield per citizen" is a big sloppy average over everyone in the state, glossing over the shape of the tax brackets and of the income distribution. The income distribution in California is not exactly flat. And (to use a cartoon example) a hypothetical county consisting of twenty people making $50,000 per year and one millionaire will have an unusually high-looking "tax yield per citizen". --- [1] I believe they might, eventually, keep up with inflation, but in a very weird way: They only reset fully with a change in property ownership. My understanding is that if you don't move out of your house your taxes stay low, but when the house is sold it can be reassessed. So property taxes do go up at some rate, but in the same way that Monterey is gradually moving farther away from Fresno: very little for many years, but with a big jump every now and then. It makes buying and selling property very exciting, and I'm sure it provides work for accountants. Of course, I'm not sure how this applies to corporations. Given that corporations can "live" forever, it might be that real property taxes are in fact destined to shrink over time.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > I see you conveniently left out California's low property taxes California's property percentages, if memory serves, are about normal. They're artificially low because of the housing boom, not because CA assess low taxes on property. How it works: Property taxes in CA are reassessed when a home is sold. My understanding is that the argument for that is that people's property taxes don't go up each year without anything changing on their part - for instance, an elderly person who bought their home in 1990 hasn't seen their property taxes triple/quadruple as housing prices did. But California by no means is trying to have low average property taxes, it only happened as a side effect of the explosion in housing prices. > As for "overall revenues from taxes": That bullet point is meaningless, since CA has the highest state population by far -- 50% higher than the second-most populous state, Texas. It's just one bullet point among many, but that's correct. > "Tax yields per citizen" is better (although it would certainly be nice to see a number: do you have one, with a citation, and a table of numbers for other states?) Read it before, didn't find it on a quick Google, so I did by hand: CA total revenue: $249,057,158,000 CA population 2008: 36,756,666 $6,775.83 per person (includes children, elderly, unworking people, etc). So yeah, California doesn't have low taxes, and that's not the reason there's budget problems in CA. Whenever you spend more than what you take in, you're going to have budget problems, regardless of how much you take in.

anamax 17y ago

> Ending Prop 13 would give the state quite a bit in revenue to continue funding higher education and fund many of the chronic deficits California faces. No it wouldn't because local property taxes don't fund higher education and never have; higher ed has always been funded at the state level. > Ending Prop 13 would give the state quite a bit in revenue to continue funding higher education and fund many of the chronic deficits California faces. You're assuming that CA has a revenue problem. It doesn't. It spends gobs more than most other states (per capita). CA has a spending problem. That can't be solved with more revenues. > . Unfortunately, even though the California public views higher education as an important goal they also want low taxes at the same time which is impossible to sustain (if 8 years of Bush have taught us anything). Those are opposing goals! The US govt also has a spending problem. It is possible to not have a spending problem. Texas (among others) manages to have decent schools and low taxes. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,0,825554.story http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-voegli1-2009nov01,...

gsmaverick 17y ago
Unfortunately I only have one upvote. This is so true. What America, and many states, need is deep spending cuts, not more taxes.
microtherion 17y ago
> You're assuming that CA has a revenue problem. It doesn't. It spends gobs more than most other states (per capita). CA is pretty much precisely in the middle of per capita spending: http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=32&cat=1 http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=32&#...