The True Source of California Revenue

When it comes to funding for transit, I am constantly reminded that it always is due to a lack of substantial revenue. In my opinion and it's most likely a fact that it's not about minimal funding at all but rather a matter of who gets how much and how much goes where. In Orange County we are dealing with a misrepresentation of revenue allocations when it involves OCTA and mass transit, at an exceptional level. It is very convenient for the county to be currently slashing bus operating hours, and its consistent failure to recognize the importance of effective mass transit, that will over the long term preserve revenues and the overall economy.

Everyday I hear from bus and train riders alike, that there is a multitude of benefits stemming from mass transit, yet the only factor of transportation that the county's transportation agency weighs in on is driving more funding to surface transportation solutions, like the widening of roadways and already overly congested freeways. The ideas are there, and there are many advocates more than willing to offer alternative as well as new ideas as to how transit can receive more funding. First, though the powers that be in Orange County need to recognize that if there is a shortage of funds for transit, and that a much more significant amount of money is going into surfacing and road work on freeways, then it would make sense to force a reallocation of funds through a more efficient, balanced and sensible budget. So far as most riders as well as taxpayers are concerned there is only a message being sent from OCTA that a majority of funding will be granted to the widening of Bristol Street and the 91 freeway. This does not even factor in the large amount of federal stimulus monies already in place that were meant to "enhance" urban surface routes, since Orange County is recognized by the Fed as a urban designation, and the statutes of the stimulus laws state that these urban designees are to only use stimulus funding for all purposes other than operations costs. So, why is OCTA struggling to make fiscal ends meet, when extra resources have been granted, yet instead of diverting existing funding, the agency pours more revenue into road projects. Yet, OCTA continues to insist to it's concerned riders that "there is not enough money to sustain bus operating hours."

This is the type of language OCTA continues to use as policy tactics in order to sway the voting public to believe that they are getting things done (i.e. surface transportation projects) yet at the same time give the voters the sense that it is acceptable to stall funding to transit for the redirection of use towards surface transportation. If transportation agencies here in California and throughout the United States continue this type of misleading communication, not only will transit continue to lose revenue support, but voters/taxpayers will not be confident enough to make effective changes in their local transportation habits.

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Signs of Wasteful Spending

The political discussion of taxes is overtly bloated in California, but this has been a consistent trend of Republicans, in gaining favor of middle to upper class voters and homeowners. What most of these voters don't know is that along with a failing budget, they are spending much more in taxes than most other states in America, and yet they see no effective public return. Sacramento and the minority Republican party have hijacked tax policies, and use smoke and mirror strategies to convince us that Democratic tax policies are irresponsible and take advantage of the ordinary citizen, of which they are absolutely not. In fact Democratic tax policies, if they could ever get through the 2/3rds hostage situation in Sacramento, are well thought out, efficient, and benefit everyone in much more responsible ways. The Republican leadership in this state is convincing us that stealing from taxpayers is okay, as long as they are doing the stealing.

In the meantime, while Sacramento continues to lose the battle of effective budget management, local entities fall into financial regression due to losses in state revenue. But, there is something missing in the equation of fiscal management. There is an ongoing battle in Orange County, where transit riders are experiencing cuts in service hours, on top of an already lacking system of transit efficiency. OCTA the main factor in transportation solutions in Orange County has minimized cuts to administrative salaries, and have only found an ineffective solution in making significant cuts to bus operating hours. Metrolink a regional train service has had to lease rolling stock from New Jersey and Utah transit systems, passenger cars which are nearly 40 years old, and come in at a price of $15,000 a car. Not only are these cars ridiculously old, and run the risk of hazards due to old parts, but they fail to meet the required accesibility standards that have been implemented on newer passenger cars for the handicapped. Instead, OCTA has spent $150,000 on a large sign that has been constructed on the side of the I-5 interstate.

Keep in mind that this sign was contracted to be built by OCTA by a private landscaping firm, and the taxpayers paid for this sign via Measure M's half-cent sales tax. Now Republicans in the area are in staunch opposition to tax hikes of any kind, and now OCTA is drawing from a county tax that is being placed in the hands of a private contractors, and at the same time providing no long-term return for the citizens of Orange County. Instead taxpayers get a sign letting those know on the freeway that they are leaving Los Angeles and entering Orange County.

The Republicans point their fingers at Democrats for wasteful spending and raising taxes, but it is the Republicans in the state who are actually fostering this type of policy behavior. It is of no coincidence that the firm that won the contract to construct this sign was a political contributor to John McCain's recent presidential campaign. Robert Clark and Michael Green of Clark & Green Associates both contributed a sum of $4600 to McCain's campaign. The focus here, is not the amount of contribution, but the default Republican association built into political business structure of Southern California regions like Orange County, and that public entities like OCTA are creating a hypocritical environment for Republicans by awarding contracts to private businesses with taxpayer dollars. If the Republican leadership had sought out expenditure on services, instead of wasteful spending like that of building a useless non-economic driving sign on the freeway, then this project would not represent a slap in the face of an already overburdened taxpayer. California's Republican tax policies and spending are in fact irresponsible.

John Campbell Fails to Fight Taxes

Have a look at John Campbell's website, where he talks about the cap and trade program, and note how he strategically titles it "Cap and Tax". One of the things that really stands out as an outright contradiction, is that Campbell expresses that cap and trade will place too much burden on taxpayers, reduce jobs, and destabilize the economy. Then there is the text of the bill which he supports in contention with the legislation of cap and trade, HR 2828, where wording of the bill places the burden of pollution control on the taxpayer.

There are several pieces of HR 2828, that firmly contradict support for the principles that Campbell and other Republicans are setting forth as alternatives to cap and trade. First, 'Cap and Tax' is a misnomer, and does not represent in anyway the legisaltion put forth by the cap and trade program. The cap and trade program's main focus is to tax industry and commercial entities that contribute to negative environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution due to the emission of carbon-based fuel resources like coal, oil, and petroleum-based gases. It is not focused on taxing individual taxpayers, and is mainly directed at those industries that can more than afford to pay for a negative effect on our environment. Cap and trade policy is more or less a business proposition put forth by the federal government, that in some terms says, "clean up your act, and pay less, or continue to pollute the environment at a high cost, but not at the cost of the taxpayer".

Mr. Campbell fails to see this as a potential business deal, and instead is masking cap and trade policy as a tax burden, soley aimed at the American taxpayer. He is not only making a politically wrong assumption, but he fails to see how billing big business on bad environmental practice actually not only addresses long overdue environmental concerns, but also creates economic growth. On his website, though, he states that cap and trade would force Americans to lose jobs, but he never really explains how this would occur. In fact, jobs would be created two-fold, because hig-level jobs such as scientists, researchers and administrators, as well as low-level jobs such as monitoring tecnicians, and maintenance workers would be produced, in order to independently and closely regulate the pollution output of any business and industry. The bill that Campbell supports (HR 2828) doesn't promote job growth, but instead fosters sustainability of big business profits, by sustaining one-time renewable energy resources that convert one carbon-based fuel to another (i.e. coal-to-liquid, which turns coal to oil, basically). This consumes a lot more energy than it produces, and converts one form of greenhouse-gas pollution into another. So, who benefits from this? No one, but businesses, who sell and buy this type of resource without a return to the economy and the taxpayer.

Big business benefits in huge part from this legislation supported by Congressman Campbell, and the taxpayers will all have to financially support it initially, at a very high cost. Since 2007, taxpayers have been underwriting grants for energy companies to build facilities that are capable of converting coal to liguid fuel. If HR 2828 passes, it would open the federal cofers up to big energy, for projects that have showed no promise in the past at a highly steep cost to the taxpayer. Back in the 1980's, Congress abandoned a $15 billion effort to subsidize private coal-to-liquid projects, because they realized that it shouldn't be the taxpayer's responsibility to produce a comercially unfeasible product. To add more salt to the taxpayer's wounds, Campbell's legislation will also reward these heavily subsidized companies with tax incentives through tax-exempt bonds for properties involved in this form of energy renewal, and allowing minumum tax grievances for these practices.

This legislation also will use taxpayer dollars to reward any company responsible for creating an innovative alternative fuel vehicle. Is it the responsibility of the taxpayer to reward, or "give bonuses" to private companies to compete? Absolutely not! And, if Campbell is a true Republican, he would view this as a soft version of capitalist socialization, which goes against all the principles of his party. It is absurd to think that a Republican, at a time when their party is in ethical shambles, could assume that his constituency would favor handing out financial incentives to private companies for doing something that should have been done years ago, in order to avoid economic fallout, and failing to effectively rethink their marketing strategy to produce a more fuel efficient vehicle. The consumer will drive the success or failure of a business based on what they demand, and if it is a more fuel efficient vehicle that has less of an impact on the environment, then the consumer will go out and spend that money on a new car, and not set their hard-earned money aside for rewarding private enterprise.

There is plenty more to be said about John Campbell's failure to represent the interests of the taxpayer, which he says is his purpose as an American leader. I have seen individuals standing on the corner of my neighborhood with signs reading "No more tax increases" and "No to Cap and Trade", and it leads me to think that this is not in their best interests. Who are they representing? Are they representing themselves, or are they representing a Washington representative, who is falsely representing his supporters, by hiding the interests of his campaign financers behind a mask of tax policies that are political ghosts, and simply do not exist. In fact Campbell's policies are contrary to fairness to taxpayer, and he is directing taxpayer money to big business interests without letting his voter base know what his true political intentions are.

OCTA: The Business that Runs Backwards

The Sacramento Bee reported that the current CalTrans director, Will Kempton, is leaving his post, in order to fill the vacant director's position at the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). The main thing that struck me in the article was his reason for taking the CEO position at OCTA was due to higher pay. Even if this is rumor or speculation, the Sacramento Bee also noted that the salary for this position at OCTA is twice that of which Kempton currently receives from CalTrans, a state agency. Not only is he moving to a smaller agency, but OCTA is currently making heavy cuts to its bus services, and in the meantime not making any effort to improve and enhance its current transit operation.

This type of fiscal behavior by OCTA is a blatant slap in the face to not only the riders of it's transit system, but also the taxpayers who are constantly griping about having to pay more for transit, something of which they claim to never use. This is costing Orange County residence a lot of money, and OCTA neglects to see that they are running a service like it's their own personal money bag. So instead of enhancing the transit system, they go and hire a new director at a high cost, fail to make salary cuts from within, and also fail to renegotiate contracts, and hang the riders and general public out to dry, in not supplying a well run transit system.

OCTA should withhold such high salaries, just as the government did with banking executives, when they discovered how dysfunctional of a product they were producing. If OCTA executives were capable of producing a viable, productive, and efficient product, that customers would actually enjoy using/purchsing, then may, just maybe, OCTA would be capable of generating more revenue independent of the state. But, this is not the case, and instead the executives decide to make cuts based on the fact that they can no longer receive more handouts from the state. They wouldn't need handouts if they were more progressive, and ran their agency like a proper business.

I look at OCTA now like a businessperson who just doesn't care about what his or her customers want. After having spoken to hundreds of riders on a day-to-day basis, I've discoverd that there are two things that they constantly don't look forward to when resorting to riding the bus. For one, the further South one needs to travel by bus in Orange County, the less frequent they are capable of catching a bus, because they run on the average of every hour. I spoke to a woman today, in Irvine, who was going to work, and she had to wait in the hot summer sun for an hour to go 10 minutes down the road. There was no overhead shelter, or other forms of shade provision, and the timetables that were posted at the stop did not display the correct times.

This is a prime example of a business gone bad. OCTA's own board director, Jerry Amante, who supports "Draconian" cuts to bus operations, has stated that it would benefit OCTA more to make these cuts, and that OCTA was "unable to change its contracts". In other words, they won't change from within, but instead they will make change to that which doesn't effect the security of their good paying jobs. It's as if OCTA is following the business models of Chrysler or GM, in failing to meet its customers needs, in order to sustain its expensive overhead of operator and executive pay.

If you were to go into a store and and find one selection of bread, that is only fresh once a week, would you buy the bread from that store or go elsewhere, where it is made fresh everyday, and there were many different varieties available? Of course, you would! OCTA is run just like the former example. It does not provide customers with multiple modes of transporation, like more light-rail, more bus route types, and certainly fails to provide an increase in operation frequency, so the customer finds the service unappealing and more of a hassle to purchase. At the same time it only invests in its employee's salaries, which is acceptable, but they are not producing a good product, so why do they deserve more of a return?

If OCTA were to invest more in its reason for being in busniess, it's riders, then it would actually be able to independently sustain a profit, not have to depend on state revenues so much, and at that point, return that profit as an investment for its employees.

Freeway Lanes For Light-Rail

An interesting concept came to mind the other day driving along the 405 freeway in Orange County last week. With all the traffic congestion problems the region is having, as well as dealing with environmental impact of this tremendous amount of traffic, and providing more options to commuters via transit, would it not be a great idea to supplement surface transportation with mass transit options like light-rail? So, instead of extending the width of freeways with more and more lanes, place light-rail infrastructure within this newly added space, in order to connect major cities in the Southern California region with cleaner, more efficient forms of transportation.

Speaking of short-sighted planning, this weekend, the city of Los Angeles will begin to heavily tax Internet and multimedia companies, that were once exempt from these type of taxes. Los Angeles, in the past, was trying to attract more of these businesses to the area, but now with the heavy tax increases, most of these businesses will now start to consider either moving out of the area completely, or relocate to the outlying areas of the city. This will seriously hamper economic growth, because Los Angeles transit system does not reach to the outer areas of the city, and will put most technology sector workers out of work or at a geographic disadvantage, in order to preserve their job status. So if you put technology companys' employees in danger of sutaining themselves, then how does the city propose that it can reap any tax revenues from businesses that are losing main productivity base?

The same matter is present in Orange County, where it is evident that more technology businesses are looking for cheaper rents, and lower taxes, and these areas only exist on the outskirts of most Orange County cities. The current employee base has little to no alternatives to road-based transportation, and being that there are no effective forms of public transportation, the only options they do have is to look for work elsewhere in the country, a place that carters more to transporation needs of the public.

The current political leadership in California is simply ignoring the welfare of the future just so that it can preserve it's political reputation. Instead of saving face by major cuts to crucial public services, and failing to provide Californians with precise and highly strategic policy implementation, our leaders are failing to invest in California. Investing in its people and the businesses will provide the state with more options for the future, so that if one thing doesn't work, and begins to draw the economy down or disable the budget, then California will have many more options to choose from. These options would include multi-modal forms of transportation (not just surface-based), enhancing public education (instead of downgrading and downsizing it), and lastly, provide taxpayers with transparent and strategic tax policies (no more grouping of policies, so that it is legally easier for corporations to be legally irresponsible with California's money).

If light-rail were to supplement, California would benefit in more ways than one. First, not to promote more drivng, but if taxes were added to rail ticket purchase, it may be possible to at least decrease the heavy burden on drivers who pay a steep gas tax in California. Second, businesses, particularly from construction and transportation industry, would bring more corporate tax revenue to the state, via an increased workforce's payroll tax, and other taxes brought by this type of business. By connecting California's communites via light-rail, it would greatly decrease unemployment, and bring more business to areas that lack potential for economic growth, because they currently geographic connection to more central urban areas.

Counterpoint: Worst Option Is to Privatize Public Schools

Nathan Fletcher of the 75th district of California, is currently running for the California Assembly. At first most of his principles seem sound, in effect to saving taxpayers money, as well as saving Californians from a runaway failing budget, due to a high rate of spending. Of course Fletcher stands for a lot of Republican economic ideologies, which seem like they could solve the budget crisis, but in reality seem very superficial, and lend to the interests of selfish businesses interests and privatizing public institutions.

One of the things that really stands out in his counterpoints to raising taxes in California is his suggestion that schools receive "70% of all funding". That means 70% of all tax revenue from the state will go to schools. But this is not in contention, and it is great that a Republican is acknowledging a need to highly fund schools in California. What proves to be ironic and contrary to helping California taxpayers save money is Fletcher's demand that schools rid themselves of in-house maintenance or janitorial staff, and replace them with private contractors, where schools will have to competitively bid for landscaping and maintenance services.

Fletcher is out of his mind to think that ridding schools of district employees of service workers will effectively save the state money. Most districts across the state retain an average of one to two maintenance staff per school, averaging about a $30,000 to $35,000 salary. Fletcher makes note that the state should rid itself of useless bureaucracies, and boards. If schools have to participate in coordinating bidding among private contractors, wouldn't that just increase the need for bureaucracy to oversee the bidding process and purchase bids in a manner to ensure saving schools money?

Also it is well worth considering the cost of low bid maintenance or landscaping contract. In 2008, California statewide reports from cities and towns who contracted private landscaping and maintenance companies to maintain their properties, averaged approved bids of $150,000 per year. This amount should be adjusted for a school district based on acreage coverage, and when you consider that, bids may decrease to about just below $100,000 a year. This amount is still significantly higher than having to pay a handful of low wage service workers directly employed by school districts. This does not even include those employed by the district to manage contracts for the districts.

If Fletcher wants to convince us that privatizing certain aspects of public school services will help California save money, then it would benefit both him and the voter to post some figures supporting his economic proposals. He should spend time convincing us that the cost of privatization is cheaper, and over the long term will uphold California's economy, and is not just a temporary solution to a chronic problem in this state.