BY: RANDY ECONOMY
We ALL hate taxes.
California is the highest taxed state in the WORLD.
Have you ever thought about how much of your money goes to taxes each and every year or each and every day?
It’s amazing when you stop and actually ponder just how much it costs to live and gasp for air here in California. We are taxed for everything under the sun here in the Golden State, and I’m sick of it.
Candy bars, coffee, a bottle of coke, internet access, cable television, utilities, car registrations, and property taxes, special “district” taxes for water and mosquito abatement and libraries.
We get taxed to stay in a hotel, or when we buy a ticket to the movies. We get taxed when we buy tickets to baseball games on line.
Last week my cell phone broke into 7 pieces, so I had to replace it. When I found a new phone, over at the Verizon Store here at the Cerritos Towne Center the $79.00 phone replacement ended up costing me $113.80, because of $21 in “special fees” like “optional service access fees,” “equipment, surcharges and ‘other’ charges/credit’ activation fees,” and the good old’ “government surcharge fee of $4.81.”
What the hell? Are you kidding me?
Now, we are getting ready to vote in our local city and school board elections here on Tuesday, November 3rd. In the city of Artesia, and city of Pico Rivera voters face three local tax measures.
In Pico Rivera, voters will determine the fate of Measure TR that would decrease their “Utility Users Tax” by ½ of 1 percent. Pico Rivera residents are one of the highest locally taxed cities in the entire United States, and they are heading back to the ballot box to determine the fate of this controversial measure.
Measure Y would increase business license taxes. Artesia is the home of the wonderful and colorful Pioneer Boulevard Shopping District and is the home to the nationally known “Little India,” the California Milk Producers, as well as Olympic icon Michele Kwan’s “East West Ice Palace.”
Can small business people afford higher business “license” fees, especially in this rotten economy?
Let’s take a brief look at Measure S in Artesia.
Measure S would more than double the hotel occupancy tax from 6% to 12.5% on every Hotel/Motel room each and every night.
This means, a one night stay at the “Quality Inn & Suites” at Pioneer Boulevard and the 91 Freeway would cost you $112.00 a night instead of the current $99. These prices are from the Quality Inn’s web site.
On the other hand, if you book the same sized room over at the Sheraton Hotel in the Cerritos Towne Center, for the same one night stay, the cost would be around $99 per night.
Sheraton Cerritos or Quality Inn in Artesia? Humm?
So, what’s in a “hotel” occupancy tax increase? You might be surprised if you stop and “compare” prices and to actually do the “math.”
I understand that Cities are facing financial “crisis.” I get it. I also understand how we can make government more accountable with an active citizenry.
Less government is better. Leaner is not meaner. Let’s really tighten up the purse strings. Let’s hold our City Managers and our ELECTED City Council Members accountable for how they spend our money, before they ask us for yet another tax increase.
Sometimes we need to really think about how we vote, before we vote, and what we are actually voting on. Why? Because, we are being taxed to death.
What are your thoughts? How are you going to vote?
Drop me at note to RREconomy@CerritosNews.com
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