[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Assemblymember Dave Jones

I recently saw an advertisement for a yacht that looked really nice. The yacht’s name said it all. “No Worries” was a true beauty, 44 feet long. But a $300,000 boat isn’t in the family budget.

Nor is it for most Californians. Especially not the state’s working poor, who struggle to pay for essentials like rent, food, utilities, and child care.

The California Budget Project estimates that for a two-parent family it takes $72,343 per year to meet basic expenses. California has about two million working families that make less than half that income.

So I was obviously frustrated last year when, while the state’s gloomy fiscal situation forced the Legislature to freeze important services to poor and middle-class families, some of my Republican colleagues in the State Senate insisted that the State Budget continue a tax break for yacht buyers. And they held up the budget for an extra month to do so.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Yesterday Democrats failed to get the 54 votes they needed to get the yacht tax loophole closed, as GOP Leader Mike Villines urged his party to close ranks and vote to keep giving yacht buyers a tax break. Pundits say it is surprising that Assembly Republicans have moved to the right of their irresponsible yahoo brethren in the State Senate (where some Republicans broke and united with Democrats to close the loophole). But a closer look at the vote totals shows a stunning lack of political courage by some in the Assembly GOP.

Assemblymember Chuck DeVore, an eloquent anti-tax conservative, spoke at length in the Budget Committee last week on the reasons to close the loophole. Yet yesterday, "Chicken Chuck" DeVore -- despite being on the Assembly floor -- thumbed his nose at his constituents and refused to vote either for or against the bill.

There's more...

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

It looks like the Republican's favorite tax cut -- a tax cut for yacht buyers -- is going to be history. Both the Senate and Assembly Budget committees have voted for its elimination.

Only Republican Assemblymember Roger Niello struggled to make a logical argument protesting its elimination while moments before slashing benefits for the lowest-income Californians (he eventually stayed off the bill). But even GOP stalwarts like Assemblymember Chuck DeVore and four other Assembly GOP'rs ended up voting for it.
 
Kudos to Assemblymember Dave Jones and others for spearheading the drive to rid our tax code of this provision.

Image courtesy Costumzee.