☆ Rishi Kumar on the question: will Santa Clara County’s Measure A sales tax ever go away?
County residents are promised that Measure A sales tax is only “temporary” and will have plenty of oversight. But County Assessor candidate Rishi Kumar argues neither is the case. He says Measure A is a regressive sales tax that won’t go away, can be spent on anything, and could even preclude the county from state healthcare funding. An Opp Now exclusive Q&A.
ON: Earlier you talked about Santa Clara’s wasteful spending on public health. What oversight will be applied to the Measure A funds which are supposed to save the hospitals from collapsing?
RK: Measure A is written as a general tax, which means the money flows into the county’s general fund with no binding guarantee it will be spent on healthcare or the services being promoted. Unlike some local measures, Measure A does not establish an independent oversight board. The Board of Supervisors will decide annually how the funds are used, so taxpayers must simply trust county leaders’ promises.
ON: On the other hand, if the money does go to public health, could Measure A run the risk of precluding state funding?
RK: When California allocates money to counties, it looks at need and available resources. If Santa Clara County creates its own dedicated revenue stream through Measure A, Sacramento may very well treat that as a reason to direct state funds elsewhere.
California has a long track record of shifting costs to counties that show they can raise their own money. So, the danger is that Santa Clara taxpayers could be paying $330 million a year in new sales taxes without seeing any real net increase in healthcare funding. It becomes a local bailout for state and federal budget cuts.
ON: But at least it’s a temporary tax, designed to raise $1.65 billion over 5 years for healthcare, or even if it goes somewhere else, it’s a known quantity, it ends after 5 years right?
RK: Don’t believe the “temporary” label. In Santa Clara County, taxes sold as temporary become permanent all too frequently. For example, the 1994 library parcel tax and the 1996 half-cent sales tax were both extended long after their original promises.
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