Skelton says California's tax system is all wrong

LAT columnist George Skelton acknowledges today that California's rich people pay most of the state's income taxes (the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of the state's income taxes.) He and Democrat legislators have proposed increasing that by raising the tax rate on top payers (which will force some of them to leave the state, maybe a lot of them.) Skelton argues that California's tax system needs fixing because relying on the rich is too volatile.

Skelton wants a tax sysem that provides a more regular source of revenues, but also one that provides increased revenues. He wants state government to take a bigger chunk of Californians' income and to take it more regularly.

Skelton obviously believes that California has a revenue problem, not an expenditure problem, which is a crazy way of looking at things. If California's government would spend less then it could get by with the existing tax system. Spending less might mean the state would have surpluses in good years which might offset deficits in bad years. But when spending is out of control as it is at present, no amount of revenue will be enough and someone will always insist on fixing the tax system so it will raise more. Like a dog chasing it's tail and never catching it, California's government has been chasing revenues sufficient to cover ever increasing expenditures and never catching up.