Governor Newsom says we’re too dumb to decide if we should be taxed more

I hope everybody sees what a bait-and-switch City of Chico sales tax Measure H has been. City council and management promised us they’d fix our streets and do something (?) about the state of lawlessness we’ve been living in for the past 5 or 6 years. Instead we see they are using Measure H funds for questionable projects and raises for city management. To date council has already approved $275,000 toward a new sales tax measure for the November ballot. That money comes out of the General Fund, which includes Measure H revenues. Next month they have scheduled an $18 million payment to CalPERS, the annual catch-up payment for the employee pension deficit, money that has been siphoned out of the General Fund.

We’ve all known people that can’t handle money – we’re living in a city run by those kind of people. The more revenues they get, the deeper they run into debt. You realize, that without existing laws requiring some voter input, these people would just raise taxes whenever they needed more money to shovel into their debt machine. They already do – remember the sewer “rate change” passed over Christmas by a mailed ballot? They doubled sewer fees, using a mailed ballot that if it was not returned meant you voted Yes. That’s legal as hell, by rules made in legislative chambers behind our collective back.

So we need the Taxpayer Protection Act, which reinstates rules that have quietly been removed from the books by a governor and legislators who want to be able to raise your taxes to cover their champagne and French Laundry lifestyles.

The TPA was put on the ballot by petition of the voters, the legal number of signatures was gathered, and the Secretary of State approved it for the ballot. The governor and his cronies were pretty pissed about it, claiming, ” citizens are simply not equipped to deal with the complexities of taxation and should not be allowed to render such a decision.“

Are you insulted by that? Cause I’m insulted. Wouldn’t you think, if the voters are so dumb, it’s the state schools that are responsible for that, and why do we keep shoveling money at schools that turn out people too dumb to vote? To think they’d just say something like that, as if it’s completely disconnected – sounds like Matt Tennis.

These people are trying to keep us from voting on tax measures because they know we’re anything but dumb. We’ve finally been overturning tax measures over the last few elections, and now the voters have put the TPA on the ballot because we want more control over how we are taxed and what the money is spent on.

Last night Chico City Council heard an update from Mark Sorensen regarding the ballot measure they want run in November, with changes necessitated by the possible passage of the TPA. I’ll talk more about that next time.

Here’s a quick read from Attorney Jonathan Turley, (thanks Dude) discussing why the governor and legislators are trying to upend this essential right of the voters.