San Francisco plans to tax corporations higher based on CEO salaries. Don’t jeer – this is exactly how the system should work if all else fails.

Photo above - federal subsidies to state and local governments are sometimes described as 3 card monte, played with taxpayer money.

San Francisco (still) has a budget problem. They’ve run the numbers several times, and feel that the cutback of Federal money from DC is going to cost their city $400 million a year. Whether the math is right isn’t the issue. San Francisco's politicians don't believe they can get voters to back a higher sales tax (8.5%), higher city income taxes (on top of state and federal income tax), property taxes, gasoline taxes, bottled water tax, tobacco tax, liquor tax, marijuana tax . . . voters have apparently had it up to here with new taxes.

So San Francisco's politicians have hit on a brilliant new tax which just might be approved. They want a business tax, based on the salary of each corporation’s CEO. Since CEOs only account for 1/1000th of San Francisco's population, this just might be approved at the polls. See link below.

San Francisco's city council doesn’t deserve all the credit for this idea. It’s actually the brainchild of SEIU local 1021 (Service Employees International Union). The union worries that politicians are going to increase their medical premiums, copays, and deductibles to balance the city budget.

Let me clear. I am NOT casting shade on this new tax. I think this is the perfect way open a debate on government spending problems. In California it’s politically impossible to raise any OTHER taxes, because people are already insanely overtaxed. And with this new CEO tax, some companies will leave. How many will leave, and how quickly, is a matter of conjecture. Stores and companies are already leaving to avoid tent cities, drug use, shoplifting, car theft and assault.

The federal government should NOT be paying the hospital bills for San Francisco’s school cafeteria workers and janitors. The city should figure out a way to pay for its own schools, police, fire departments, and 500 other agencies – everything from the Adult Probation Department to the Zoo. The richest cities in America should be able to pay for their own zoos, rather than expecting taxpayers in places like West Virginia to pick up the tab.

Okay, this where someone who hates red-tinged flyover states asserts "they get a bunch of money from Washington DC too". Yes – I concede your point. And the solution is – stop all of it. Let San Francisco and West Virginia and every other state decide how many police, EV battery ferryboats, and zoos they need. States and cities should make their own decisions about spending and taxes at the local level

Stop playing three-card-monte with our tax dollars, moving them around to confuse us. Penn and Teller already exposed this as cheap sleight of hand trick.

I’m just sayin’ . . .


'Fighting back': SF campaign launched to tax corporations with highest-paid CEOs