Amador County – Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal responded last week to the Governor’s proposed budget for 2012-2013, saying taxpayers are being “held hostage” by a “sham budget.”

David Wolfe, Legislative Director of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he helped draft Coupal’s column, which ran Friday on Flash Report. Wolfe said it is “a good update on the fiscal state of California,” and shows the “obvious contrast of what will be on the November ballot, namely taxes v. spending cap.”

Coupal in the column said Gov. Jerry Brown made a “ransom demand to Californians” as if to say: “Vote for more in taxes or I’ll cut $5 billion from education.” Coupal wrote: “Upon hearing the threat, citizens across the state yawned and then went about their business knowing that the gun pointed at their wallet wasn’t even loaded.”

He wrote that “Brown’s proposed tax hike wasn’t really a surprise as just a few weeks ago he laid out the plan to increase income and sales taxes on Californians by $35 billion over five years. If this sounds familiar, it should. These are the very same taxes voters rejected less than three years ago by a two-to-one margin,” and “voters have rejected the last seven tax hikes dating back to 2006.”

Coupal said the “Governor not only assumes that voters will approve taxes, but he is so confident of this that he built the revenue into his budget. Brown envisions a 7 percent hike in spending for 2012-2013, the largest annual increase in six years.”

Coupal said “revenues have increased more than 3 percent and the unemployment rate has declined to 11.3 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years,” and Brown would “choke off this fledgling economic recovery with taxes” because “California politicians lack the intestinal fortitude to live within their means.”

Coupal said “the Governor talks a good game” of paying down the state’s “wall of debt,” but “he followed that up with asking for a $12 billion water bond,” and continued to support the High Speed Rail program “and a cap-and-trade” that will “drive Californians’ energy costs through the roof.”

Coupal said “vast sums of their taxpayer dollars are being wasted” and “voters will be reminded” by his group that “they are not under-taxed” but “our government leaders simply are not good stewards of their tax dollars.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.