High Cost Rail - Part 79 What's $226M Between Friends?

Now that the "yes" votes are in from the Assembly and the Senate, and Gov. Loonbeam's signature is dry on the initial funding, the SacBee is highlighting where some of the first money will go.  $226 M will land in Fresno:

The estimate by the state's Transportation Department includes acquiring the private property needed to shove the freeway west by about 100 feet between Ashlan and Clinton avenues in central Fresno, as well as building new traffic lanes and demolition of the old highway, according to a report to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

So come November when you are asked to raise the sales tax rate and the income tax rates on the "rich" please remember this $226 million of your dollars.  And when Loonbeam tells you the new revenue will go to public safety and education ask yourself how he will know what part of the income taxes are from these new rates and how you will know where the money is going after he stashes it in the General Fund?

Comments

[Joe]

Just to put a fine point on my first question about income tax revenues, this is also from today's Bee

California may never see "hundreds of millions" in Facebook-related tax dollars necessary to balance the state budget as investors spurn the social media giant, the state's top fiscal analyst warned Wednesday.

After its first earnings report failed to energize investors last week, Menlo Park-based Facebook closed Wednesday trading at $20.88 per share. The new low has sunk 45 percent below the company's initial $38 share price.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said Wednesday that "if the company's stock price remains depressed, hundreds of millions of income tax dollars assumed in the 2012-13 state budget plan are at risk."

Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are counting on Facebook stock transactions to generate $1.9 billion in income tax revenue through June – or $1.5 billion if voters reject higher taxes on upper-income earners.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/02/4684138/facebook-investors-tax-revenue.html#storylink=cpy

[Joe]

And today's gem of a tally from the SacBee...remember this in November:

California drivers pay fees for smog checks, vehicle registrations and new tires, all supposedly for programs that benefit roadway use.
Consumers pay fees to recycle beverage containers, televisions and computers. Doctors and accountants pay license fees to regulate their industries.
But for more than a decade, the special funds collecting these dollars have served a second purpose: helping California pay for schools, social services and prisons that are supposed to be funded by general taxes.
California has 560 funds deemed "special" because in theory they're walled off from general state expenditures. In the face of two recessions, however, California reached deeper into those funds for purposes that fee payers never intended. The state now owes $4.3 billion to special funds, more than five times the amount owed in 2008.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/03/4688237/california-reaches-deep-into-special.html#storylink=cpy