California in the Times of the Have-Nots and the Have Yachts

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Carole Lutness
Democratic Candidate
38th Assembly District

A few weeks ago all of the Republican legislators in Sacramento voted against a bill that would have taxed oil companies for the oil they extract from or refine in California. Every other state in the United States taxes oil companies for the oil they extract or refine in their state. Why not California? Laying off the 20,000 teachers in schools throughout the state this summer could be prevented with this one tax.

A few weeks before that, these same Republican legislators voted against closing the “Yacht loophole” which allows billionaires to avoid paying sales tax for their yachts and airplanes if they tuck them away in storage for three months. Why in the world would all of the Republicans vote against correcting such a blatant “let them eat cake” slap to the middle class face?

Why? Because as a group, the Republicans have vowed never to vote for a bill that will raise taxes. The world is crumbling around them and us and yet they will not raise taxes. Instead, they actually like the fact that public services, the infrastructure--roads, public utilities, etc., public school children, the elderly, sick and disabled will be shouldering the entire $16 billion deficit on their backs.

This is part of the Grover Norquist policy of “shrinking government so small that you can drown it in the bathtub.” Every time the Republicans prevent a tax that will save public school teachers’ jobs, keep a health clinic open, provide services to seniors, they are moving us closer to their ideal; a world without government. A world of privatized services, military mercenaries, privatized water, toll roads, for-pay public toilets and most of all no restrictions on business, no environmental oversight, no health inspectors, etc. This is the Republican vision of Nirvana, a world of "you're on your own," or YOYO instead of "we're in this together," or WITT.

Is this the kind of world you envision for your children and grandchildren? A world of Have Nots and Have Yachts? A world where the economic disparity between the ultra rich and the rest of us widens with every quarterly report? A world of dog-eat-dog, laissez faire capitalism where millions of people are now facing destitution? How did we come to this place and how are our California Republican legislators helping to solidify this economic disparity?

In post-World War II America, between 1947 and the early 1970's, all income groups shared in the nation's economic growth. Poor families actually had a higher growth in real annual income than other groups. It was a time of great prosperity for nearly everyone with a thriving middle class growing secure with full employment and good unions.