Jerry Brown joins millionaires tax supporters

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Gov. Jerry Brown and backers of a rival ballot initiative to raise taxes to pay for state services have agreed to combine efforts behind a new measure.

Brown has for weeks tried to convince backers of the so-called Millionaires Tax - along with supporters of a third competing tax increase proposal - to hold off on their plans and allow his to be the only one on the November ballot.

... Under the agreement, the governor will combine his efforts with those of the California Federation of Teachers, the Courage Campaign and others who were backing the Millionaires Tax initiative. The new proposal would be a hybrid of the two, which are currently being circulated by signature gatherers.

... The new plan would increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent instead of Brown's proposed half a cent. Personal income tax would go up by 1 percentage point for individuals making $250,000 a year or couples making $500,000 a year. Individuals making $300,000 a year or couples making $600,000 a year would see an increase of 2 percentage points. And, individuals making $500,000 and couples making a $1 million or more would see a tax raise of 3 percentage points.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/14/BAS71NKNSR.DTL&tsp=1

[JHB]

1. In an older thread I showed charts of historical tax bracket thresholds...

...on chart for 1913-2011 and one just covering 1951-2011, inflation-adjusted to 2011 dollars

Didin't go into the rates, just the levels where one bracket stopped and the next began. I mainly wanted to show the number of brackets and how high they reached, hitorically in this country. (used single filers, but you'd get comparable results with other types)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002400229

Just as a sample, the 1951-2011 chart is below.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I love this chart.

Thanks!

[alp227]

10. But this initiative is about state not federal tax.

info for california: http://taxfoundation.org/research/topic/15.html

[JHB]

11. I wasn't addressing this measure specifically, just the general topic of "millionaires tax"...

...but reminding people we effectively had such things nationally strengthens the case for enacting it at a state level.

When opponents start in with the "class warfare / radical socialist ideology / punishing success" arguments, it help to be able to point to something that makes it plain as day that we had such things in this country already, in prosperous times. And the follow up is that a large part of our current fiscal woes are thanks to the elimination of these things.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. If I read this correctly, there will still be one competing initiative on the ballot

[KamaAina]

3. There MAY still be

if Molly Munger can get enough signatures to get hers on.

I'd expect the Governor's office to redouble its efforts to get Ms. Munger to drop out now.

[KamaAina]

4. Yes!!!

Now let's hope the combined measure will include some revenue for health and human services programs, rather than giving it all to education and public safety as in Brown's original proposal.

[liberalmike27]

5. OK, they are barking up the right tree

They just need to climb a bit higher in that tree. Plus they should add some nice taxes onto those with the 15% rate for capital gains.

Still say, stop globalization, bring the jobs and the tax base back to the US. it's the least mentioned part of why globalization is bad, that it created a huge hole, where taxes used to be collected to fill.

[cstanleytech]

7. How would you stop "globalization" exactly?

[freshwest]

8. Hope this works.

[Auggie]

9. Excellent

[xxqqqzme]

12. Good although Brown

should have withdrawn the sales tax increase. We really, really don't need another sales tax increase.