Gov. Schwarzenegger hits ground running (repeals car tax)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/17/elec04.schwarzenegger/index.html

Newly inaugurated California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an order rolling back a 300 percent increase in state vehicle registration fees Monday, just hours after taking the oath of office.

Executive Order No. 1 repealed the $4 billion increase in the "car tax," imposed earlier this year to help shrink a massive budget shortfall from $38 million to $8 million. Analysts believe the fee hike contributed heavily to his predecessor's defeat. Reversing the car tax was one of actor Schwarzenegger's leading campaign promises.

Schwarzenegger, 56, a Republican, took office nearly six weeks after voters recalled embattled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. After being sworn-in as the state's 38th governor, Schwarzenegger called on Californians to "put the rancor of the past behind us and do the extraordinary."

Schwarzenegger said the recall "was the people's veto of politics as usual," and pledged swift action to lead a state he said is "in crisis."

Where do people really think this money goes? Hello, folks, it goes to firefighters, police officers, street cleaners, road crews. It just boggles my mind that people who drive luxury cars would be pissed about spending $500 a year to license them. There is NO sympathy from me, I'll tell you.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The law was enacted by Pete Wilson.

For adding that - I had forgotten that most important point...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

considering what you get for it, and considering what other people around the world pay for their cars.

My friends down in LA just got bills to pay $270 for their 10-year-old Hondas. That is really not that much to pay for a car, if you ask me. Like I said, I used to pay $800 for my car before we had the evil Tim Eyman come in and dessimate our vehicle excise tax. Now we have no road repair, no new highways, no new mass transit. Wanna try living here, WSG? I bet you'd be the first person to bitch about lack of services.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Please tell me that is for more than one year. It is completely outrageous otherwise. And a 300% increase is insane. I can understand that people are pissed. When I lived in California in the early 1990's I paid about $150 every two years as I recall which is right in line with other states I have lived in. In Texas it varies by county, but it is $70 or so per year. Because of that Proposition they passed a number of years ago (I forget the details) where property taxes are limited, they have to find it elsewhere.

it's not as if we weren't paying it before , and lived. Good times triggered this discount. Well baby , the good times are over. The way some of these fucking idiots drive around here, I would charge more. The reason they got all angry , is that they are all driving cars that they can't afford. everyone wants good highways,tho , police services and fire protection. Arnold just addes $4b to the budget deficit.

...although $270 sounds a tad bit high. My honda civic should run about $150-200, I'd have to double check what I paid last year. Maybe its for a honda accord.

Eyman should burn in Hell! (Or be jailed for embezzling initiative funds!) :grr:

That is quite interesting. The average Joe Dirt afforded a similar tax for almost ALL of Pete Wilson's term so I rather doubt that.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

What's your point?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I managed to house, feed and clothe myself, and even had a few bucks to donate to DU. Yeah, I must be nuts.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

is based on the value of the car.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

That is what we are referring to. Where do you live?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

We have 36 million people in this state and do not get ANYWHERE near back from the feds what we pay in which is part of the problem. Meanwhile when I drove through the south on I-10 through states that can't afford a pot to piss in, I didn't hit a single bump..and these are roads built over swamps at considerable expense.

So it appears my FEDERAL taxes are paving Mississippi at the expense of my state, which need roads to get all that we provide the rest of the nation to it's destination.

Perhaps if my federal tax money was not supporting your state, I might pay a lesser car tax to get my state funded appropriately...people actually live here.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

passed Prop. 13 that limited property tax increases. One pays higher car taxes that would have been reflected in your property tax had they been allowed to rise as they had before. That's an $800 property tax over the last 25 years (Prop 13 was enacted in 1978). Not an unheard of increase over that period of time. Especially considering Real Estate prices in Cali. Nutshell: the money has to come from somewhere.

Blame Howard Jarvis (the author of Proposition 13).

Prop. 13 was passed decades ago. If you can blame a 30+ year old initiative, don't be shocked when the Repubs point to Clinton when they try to foist blame on whatever problem they don't want to take the heat for. The problems with CA are much more recent than a 30 year old voter initiative.

How about things like depending on volatile sources of tax revenue. If you have taxes on such things as stock bonuses and capital gains taxes, when the economy goes sour, those revenues get hit hard. Plus, unlike in previious years, expenditures haven't gone down by much, but tax revenues have.

If spending had not grown as fast as it did, there would have been a much, much smaller problem, maybe even none at all.

due to the tech sector collapse aided by dishonest practices from east coast banks concerning IPO's and you would know that a great deal of the increased expenses was NOT increased spending but runaway healthcare costs...

In the form of increasing state employees.

could you explain this comment? my bf happens to work for the state and if anything, thousands of state jobs are and have been left unfilled. there are lots of jobs now where one person is doing the job of three. AND THEY STILL WANT TO CUT SOME MORE!!!!! :grr:

About the Cali car tax. Ahnuld didn't "repeal" the car tax, he repealed the increase in the car tax. The vehicle registration fee in California is based on the market value of the vehicle you drive. Before the increase, it was 0.5% of the value of your car. It was increased to 2%.

Under the relevant law, the Governor has the authority to increase or decrease the vehicle registration fee depending on the financial needs of the state. The minimum is 0.5%, the max is 2%. Since the state was in a gaping hole, Governor Davis rightly decided to increase the fee.

Regarding the ridiculous claim of having to pay $800, that would only happen if you were driving a car that was worth $40,000. If you were driving a $200 car, 2% of 200 is 4.

For having campaigned on a promise to fix the state's budget shortfall, Ahnuld's first official act seemed counterproductive, as it will cost the state $4 billion in revenue. Not to mention, the revenue from the car tax goes to police departments, fire departments, and first responders. Please raise your hand if you'd be comfortable with having the services scaled back in your state.

Great post! :hi:

ther is no comparison

And expect it to be for free.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Registration is now $30 flat fee. Before that it was 2.2% of the cars value. So his car must be worth $36,363.

for transit, monorail, et al.

BTW, who the hell do you people think actually PAYS for things? Do you think money just comes out of thin air or something? Sheesh. Mr. Goldmine, try taking a look at your state budget and cut whatever you think you don't need...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

car use. The cost of air pollution, roads, health care, police, and traffic control. Car use is subsidized by the federal government and state government.

All of us who drive cars take more from the Government than we give back. I pay a lot of taxes, but I know I get more from our Government than I pay. I have personally done many studies of taxes and government budgets and I have no idea how you anyone of us can actually assess if we pay more than we get back from government. Well, I have an idea how I would analyze it but I know the results would not be that credible. It is wishful thinking for you to say that you pay more than you take from government.

and get an inspection in the deal. We have a 2% transfer tax when we buy or sell vehicle as well., sounds like we get off real cheap.

Borrowing $20 billion dollars is easy...cutting
the cap gains tax for the rich is easy...this
is the Republican habit of borrowing on the backs of our children,
cutting taxes for their buddies and cutting the programs
that keep people employed, the infrastructure healthy
and services running.

"Let them eat cake."

Has anyone told Arnie that California is nearly bankrupt? Or is he planning to follow the Republican agenda and continue the march to anarchy?

:crazy:

what's he gonna do to get that money! I know it WON'T be the Enron lawsuit!!!

fuck Ahnold

:grr:

and it's the popular thing to do. In fact, I applaud this move because I sure as hell don't want to pay that much to register my car next year. This will be Arnie's most popular move. It's all downhill from here...

Now there's those pesky things like police departments, firefighters, etc that cost money.

Don't get me wrong, CA has a ridiculous amount of fat in its budget, but maybe he should cut spending before taxes? Just a thought.

The money's gotta come from somewhere.

THEN says he'll have meetings in the future to discuss how to deal with the budget problems :silly:

why did you say $30 billion. Are you adding the income over 7.5 years or are the misrepresenting the cut?

I'm going by the article quoted above:

imposed earlier this year to help shrink a massive budget shortfall from $38 million to $8 million.


that shrinking is gone now. We are in more debt now with this exec order than we were yesterday

and the idiot hasn't even said WHEN he's going to have these bullshit meetings, much less hint at HOW they will work. He pandered to the people first

Yet the budget shortfall was $38 MILLION. How does $4 BILLION drop the debt 30 MILLION. I read the article and a few other articles and understand about the increased interest on Cali's loans because of their reduced credit rating, but the numbers still don't jive.

I am not accusing you of anything, I didn't even catch the billion/million aspect before. I just don't understand all the numbers. Can you, or someone else, explain what the car tax was before it was raised 300% and the relationship between the $4 billion and the 38-8 million? Thanks

Every time I hear a dollar figure, it's different. I think sometimes they project ahead a few years, sometimes not...

though re-reading, it seems the car tax was merely to help bring the deficit down to $bill. Not sure they are trying to say it will do it all by itself.

still, I would feel better if they had their meetings FIRST, then worry about what gets cut and what does not

It should be BILLIONS not millions of dollars. We had a $38 billion deficit which was reduced to $8 billion after the budget passed. That $4 billion will now raise the current deficit to $12 billion. I'm surprised that got in there.

Gee, one day in and he's already lost us $4 billion. That's why incompetent fools like him should not be elected to the highest office of the 5th largest economy in the world.

the law was DUE to the fact that communities are LIMITED in funds they can raise from property taxes in order to fund local fire and police due to prop 13.

Although I'm not sure how/why they came to being.

Sign his name? How is that legal?

Thanks for looking after "the little guy" Arnie...

I have yet to see any deregulation effort work well and actually accomplish good things.

Can he repeal a law by himself? Doesn't the legislature have to enact a law to repeal it?

He can't, but he did it anyway.

:shrug:

that is going to be a savings to me, more money to give to enviromental groups and to the Democrats to defeat the groper in three years and that is EXACTLY what I will do with it.

Last January I paid $190.00 - which in my opinion is ridiculously low for a car purchased new in 2001 for close to $30k.
The other day the renewal notice came (pre-rollback) and I owed $452.00. Tripling last years tax would have left me owing $570.00, so in my case the tax certainly didn't "triple" - though I realize depreciation is factored into the equation.

At any rate, I can certainly afford the $452.00 and thinks it's stupid and irresponsible to cut this source of revenue. What asses people are. It's all "me, me me" - not one goddamn iota of concern for the common good.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and not under-qualified working families who don't make enough to put a roof over their children's heads if they want to feed them; the newly un-employed middle class who can't afford to move out of the area to where the few jobs with a living wage are, let alone barely pay to move into a cheaper apartment while they drift from mcjob to mcjob trying to stay off the streets, start-up business people in depressed neighborhoods who depend of state set-asides to keep from declaring bankruptcy and keep one or two people employed; the disabled people and the elderly who cannot work a regular job, even if there were one with living wages - ones that would also allow them to pay their medical costs as well as eat and live in a crappy apartment at the same time - they could be qualified to do that might consider hiring them.

I hope you aren't falling back on the myth of the "Ghetto Welfare Queen driving a Caddie and wearing bling"...while it's true most "Welfare Queens" drive expensive cars and have shoppers for them at Neiman Marcus, most of them are on the board of directors of a fast-track corporation that's bottom-lining and shipping out it's local economy, environment, and work-force - as well as sucking up the tax breaks they were lobbying for to "help" all of the three catagories of local concerns above.

After all, Corporations have managed to make themselves "persons" and abuse the welfare system worse than any group of under-employed "project" residents ever could - and they certainly take more state and federal resources in terms of infrastructure and tax dollars than any equivilent group of poor families trying to stay alive.

What is the purpose of government, anyway? Isn't it for a common good, the "Well-fare of the People"?

Haele

I have never seen such a bunch as the repigs for having their hands out and wanting everything for free. The repigs think that they shouldn't have to contribute anything to run the country, state or their own cities...greedy pigs...REPULSIVE. :puke:

...Everyone wants what is good for them 'at the moment', with no concern for what is good for the majority, in the long run.

Just a holdover from the 80's...the ME generation.

...but I still like the music from that time....

Since when was a Governor able to invalidate legislation by Executive Order? That's quite a dictatorial power he has there. Or was the tax instituted by Pete Wilson through Eecutive order, which also hardly seems proper. Is he bending the law, or is California government even more screwed up than Alabama's?

the repeal of the car tax legislation means it has to go before the legislature so that the state can find the place to cut other prigrams to replace the revenue it needs to be able to fund its municipalities. This means it has to be voted on and programs that can be affected can be programs within or directly affecting education, health assistance...things like that. Heard this discussed a few weeks back on NPR.

who appears to know what he/she is talking about. The Governor can set the value of the registration tax to whatever value they want, between 0.5% and 2.0%. When the economy was good, the Governor had it set to 0.5%. When California got screwed over by Enron and was short a few billion, Davis raised it to 2.0%. Arnold isn't repealing the tax but lowering the tax back to 0.5%.

by a city council member - the 'car tax'comes back to your county and city - it has nothing 2 do w/ the state budget shortfall. Registration fees are THE major source of income 4 our counties and cities.

The increase was automatic. There was a trigger built N3 the original legislation, signed by Pete Wilson. When revenues 4 counties fell below a fixed percentage, the fee increase kicked in. Since squatter assumed the throne - there is no money for civic affairs.

During the Clinton years CA was phat cuz of the silicon valley BS. Counties and cities had money. jeebus, here in Huntington Beach, we got a new pier, and a brand new open-air pierside theatre/farmer's market space. Won't C any civic improvements along those lines any time in the foreseeable future.

by a city council member - the 'car tax'comes back to your county and city - it has nothing 2 do w/ the state budget shortfall. Registration fees are THE major source of income 4 our counties and cities.

The increase was automatic. There was a trigger built N2 the original legislation, signed by Pete Wilson. When revenues 4 counties fell below a fixed percentage, the fee increase kicked in. Since squatter assumed the throne - there is no money for civic affairs.

During the Clinton years CA was phat cuz of the silicon valley BS. Counties and cities had money. jeebus, here in Huntington Beach, we got a new pier, and a brand new open-air pierside theatre/farmer's market space. Won't C any civic improvements along those lines any time in the foreseeable future.

And kill the FERC rebate demands. Once the energy cartel is allowed to walk, he is expendable.

I guess the car tax is something California can live without...




rocknation

I guess you guys don't know how FERC works. FERC is not going to take orders from a governor. If they did, then Davis would have been able to tell the FERC to stop the electricity generators. Remember, the crisis started to become really noticable in August of 2000 (i.e., Pre-Bush years). It didn't work that way, and it doesn't work that way now.

FERC has already removed Enron's market based ratemaking authority and has barred them from doing business anywhere in the U.S.

FERC has removed market based rate making authority for several other generators (Reliant, and a few others). This means to set rates in the U.S. these generators have to go to FERC, allow tremendous access to all sorts of company data and let FERC decide what the rates are.

There is a huge case where just about anybody and everybody in the electricity business in CA are to provide reasons why the made profits on various actions. Even a few hundred bucks will get you on that list.

Its a great sounding story....something Oliver Stone might come up with, but its just a story.

If true, how can that possibly be seen as innocent?

And is it not true that CA is petitioning FERC for $9 billion in rebates?

It will be very interesting to see how Gropenator plans to bring in revenues sufficient to cover the mandatory budget expenses, let alone pay down any defecits incurred. He will have to tax something, in the end.

Why didn't Gray repeal the recall law?

Not that this ever stops a Fascist.

I was born in Cali in 1939 and things were great until Prop 13. It's the only state in the nation with two separate property taxes. A good friend pays only $200/year for her home (bought before 1977) and the neighbor pays over $2000/year for a house bought in 1979....(identical houses). People were told it would eventually "even out". We got tired of waiting and moved to another state!

Starting to sound like he thinks this is "libertarian underground." I got mine, all taxes are slavery, the lazy ones need to get off their asses. Why should I subsidize (fill in the blank). Neglecting, of course, to address the fact that as a general rule the "traditional values we don't cotton to no welfare, folks oughta work" states suck massive subsidies out of the liberal coast states. Yeeeee haw.

9 billion dollars and Californians are so stupid that they will repeal the one thing that, though unfortunate, will probably recoup some of those losses since Arnold will stop the Bustamente lawsuit to get the money back from the Republican energy thugs.

passed Prop. 13 that limited property tax increases. One pays higher car taxes that would have been reflected in your property tax had they been allowed to rise as they had before. That's an $800 property tax over the last 25 years (Prop 13 was enacted in 1978). Not an unheard of increase over that period of time. Especially considering Real Estate prices in Cali. Nutshell: the money has to come from somewhere.

Blame Howard Jarvis (the author of Proposition 13).



(reposted from an earlier reply)

And if you think he's going to make cuts to compensate, 98% of the budget is mandated spending.

He's just cutting and hoping like Bush did and hoping people forget by the next election.

The people in California can relate to this one, since he is simply refinancing the loan, just like everybody around here does after they become completely over extended. I see this as very dangerous, since this move assumes that the economy is going to improve to the point where the income tax base will be able to pay it back. Where is the real evidence that the economy is improving?

What these idiot pundits don't get is that IT is gone forever from Cali. The days of the 120K a year computer programmer are a thing of the past like Britney Spears' virginity, and without a huge tech sector, there's no other real tax base to pull from.

In addition, Cali's spending will skyrocket because of healthcare. You have two major healthcare problems: (1) the population is getting older and will need more healthcare and (2) the new jobs that are being created in Cali are temp and low paying positions which offer no benefits. So, these uninsured people will need government financed healthcare.

In the end, Cali will be spending more money, taking in less money, and not creating any new jobs to pay for their current expenses.

Because of the graduated tax tables, even with 20 new workers in temp jobs at 20k they probably wouldn't collect the taxes they get from at $120K guy.

I am afraid I see a huge collapse on the horizon.

...one stupid assumption was that there would be no change in the number of cars that were bought by consumers. That is the tax triples, yet people still buy cars. The fact is the car sales industry has decreased...alot. Car sales are down 35% since the tax went into effect.

There are two responses people can have to this tax to lessen its impact.

1. Buy cheaper cars.

2. Hold on to your current car longer.

Both decrease the tax revenue going to the state, both impose losses on the car sales industry (great way to stimulate the economy!).

Now one reason why the decrease in car sales was so large was probably do to a waiting attitude. Wait to see if Arnold would lower the VLF back to pre-election levels. Now that he has done that sales might pick up again.

then how are you going to balance the budget? Fine. Kill the car tax. Where are you going to get the money to balance the budget? Anhauld won by being Santa Clause. He promised everything to everyone without paying for anything. In the end, someone will have to pay.