California rockets into first place – highest sales tax in America, as of April 1st.

The solution to homeless ness is not higher taxes or higher wage it is lower rent and housing cost. Lower cost of groceries and a forced retirement age ( +5% income tax for each year over 65 or whatever retirement age is) with increased income tax as workers age past retirement age; while a person is working post retirement age.
Example DJT at age 78 would pay (78-65)*5=65% of his take home earnings (what remained after already paying standard income tax) to taxes if he chooses to not retire and exit the workforce).
People that are over retirment age are holding up tax paying (salaried jobs) and the associated tax revenue. Already raised their kids own their house paid off the car escaped as many taxes as possible and now wont retire. Its DJT syndrome and to avoid prison!
Rather than an increasing tax on people as they work beyond the age of retirement. These post retirement age politicains increase sales tax on the worker making the cost of living increase for everyone; while lowering quality of life; especially for those not already established in a career.
We need new strategies. New politicians and lower taxes.
Instead FOR NOW we are stuck with the same OLD.

It is not so bad at all really in the UK it is called VAT (value added Tax) and on most goods and services apart from very few are at 20 % so California is cheap in comparison.
As for it disappearing down the HOLE that is true of most countries ask any government where they wasted and squandered the money, you will get pretty much the same answer fixing problems that take time and money to fix that actually never get fixed ever.
You will never solve homelessness by chucking money at it, one of the causes is that cities attract people to them that believe that city streets are lined with gold or where they have a better chance of making a living it is very untrue myth that it is so, probably a lot of the people there are not actually originally from LA the same as the equation in many other cities all over the world. Because unless you already have a job in a city to come to the chances are stacked against you, because you are going to be competing with even more people for the jobs available.
Costs for housing etc also go up in cities because there is higher demand for what is available it is pure Supply and Demand scenario.
Another factor is that in reality the JOB market has already shrunk because of technological advancements and even the way we as people conduct our lives as in the way we shop etc has changed and is shrinking ever more, there are many functions that used to exist in places like banks where it needed numerous people to do, in some cases where were 25 people in a department there are now 2 and they do all the work with the wonderful thing called a computer, in some cases entire functions within a bank no longer exist at all. You can pick almost any service industry or manufacturing industry and machines have taken many many jobs away
Then you also get people themselves as to what they want to train to be in Life there are a lot of people that train to do the Trendy Jobs of that time because they see others as being less fashionable lots of countries have dire shortages of things like Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters etc.

The decimals on interest rates is a psychological ploy. Same as when an item at the store is. 13.99 instead of 14.00 it makes the consumer think the merchant has saved them as much money as possible. I bought it for 12 have to make 3$ to make it worth my time (and labor) so if i list it was 14.95 and say "price reduced" now will you buy it?

I made a wrong turn in LA off the interstate and I thought I was going through a third world war zone

This is what happens when democrats are in charge.

iowa has 7%