☆ Vice Mayor of Saratoga: Measure A adds on taxes for struggling residents, with no detailed justification
The County of Santa Clara bought two hospitals and has created a budget issue by overspending, says Saratoga Vice Mayor Chuck Page. To make up for their indiscretions, the county is again turning to the taxpayer for a bailout: problem is, he says, the regressive Measure A sales tax will only hurt the people it’s supposed to help. And Opportunity Now exclusive commentary.
Personally, it’s the compounding of all these taxes that worries me. If the county mismanages, they over-appropriate, they overspend, and then they can’t balance their budget. If I overspent, I’d have to sell my house and move somewhere else less expensive. Or take out a loan to pay off debt. What the county does is look at two million county residents and say, “You can help us out.” That’s not accountability.
My biggest concern is that this is a general fund tax. It doesn’t go to a specific cause. They talk about “saving the hospitals,” but maybe they shouldn’t have bought the hospitals in the first place, or had a plan to operate them in a fiscally responsible manner. Or made this a specific tax with the funds going to fund county healthcare services directly.
They’ve never justified their numbers. Before you come to residents asking for another bailout, you’ve got to tighten your belt somewhere. Look at the county payroll. Administrators and public hospital employees are among the highest paid in the region.
This tax is supposed to last five years. Every time one of these taxes sunsets, the County (or other entity) comes back to the voters with a new tax and says, “We’re not increasing your taxes, we’re just continuing the old one.” Meanwhile, we pay more for everything we buy. It’s ridiculous.
If Measure A is supposed to help those who can’t afford things, well, this kind of regressive tax hurts low-income people the most. That frustrates the living daylight out of me.
I’ve spent eleven years on Saratoga’s city council and we’ve balanced the budget every single year. We budget conservatively, overestimate expenses, and underestimate revenues. At the end of the year, we usually have a little left for capital projects. That’s what fiscal responsibility looks like.
If you want good governance, start managing money like families and cities do—by living within your means.
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