Don't mess with people's cars...

[kentuck]

A few years ago, a Democrat was upset by a right-winger in the state of Virgina because of some "car tax". It seems people view their cars as an extension of their home. When you tax their car or charge too much for gasoline, they get angry. Just as if you did the same with their home and their property taxes. There is a lesson here.

Don't mess with people's cars. Gray Davis tripled the tax on cars in California and that pissed a lot of people off. He was looking for revenues to fight the monstrous deficits in his budget. But he looked in the wrong direction. The Proposition 13 from the late 70's had put his state into its present dilemma. Californians thought they were paying too much in property taxes and some were. But they locked the hands of the Governor and the legislature to raise revenues in the future. That is the wall that Gray Davis ran up against. And he went after the cars. Big mistake.

[GOPisEvil]

1. Uh, wasn't the tax increase an automatic thing?

I thought Gov. Davis lowered that tax, but due to the state's lousy budget situation, the law enabling the tax automatically raised it.

[indigo32]

2. You are right in one sense

Americans figure cars are an indelible right of some sort (jeez would that they thought the same about healthcare)...
BUT Gray Davis was not responsible for that car tax. The law the resulted in the llarge increase in taxes was signed by Pete Wilson... the nasty part just kicked in while Gray was there.

[kentuck]

3. I did not know that !

I never picked that up from our media....surprise!

[Tempest]

5. And now Arnold is in for a big surprise

One of his campaign promises was to repeal the increase.

Well, guess what? He can't. He doesn't have the power.

It will take the majority Democrat Legislature to repeal the increase, and unless Arnold can find the cuts to off-set the income loss (the deficit is currently $9 billion, repealing the car tax will increase it to $20 billion) in a way the Democrats agree with, the car tax will stay.

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

10. All Arnold has to do is propose the increase repeal

If the Democratic Legislature doesn't go along, blame them. You still get the revenue and the credit for fighting against the increased car tax.

[Tempest]

13. And all the Legislature has to do...

...is to point out the cuts Arnold wants to make.

Arnold can't touch education funding, he said he wouldn't in the campaign. He won't touch anything to do with children programs, he not only said he wouldn't but he's a big proponent of them. And he sure as hell won't propose cutting the after-school programs he helped get passed last year, that would be suicide.

Californians won't be happy with many of the cuts Arnold will be forced to propose.

Arnold will fail mainly because of the people he has associated himself with. And those people are Pete Wilson and his cronies.

[Blue_Chill]

6. Hold on, I heard Davis approved some insurance thing

that allowed Car insurances to raise rates on a boat load of california drivers. That true?

[Tempest]

9. No, he didn't

He signed a law which would require insurance companies to give discounts to 'loyal' policy holders.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/insurance/nw/nw003508.php3

[LunaC]

4. Correction

No, he didn't raise the car tax......years ago, when CA had a surplus, the vehicles fees were reduced to "give back" to the citizens. Now with the deficit, the vehicle fee "discount" will no longer apply and fees will be returned to where they used to be.

[FDRrocks]

7. Indeed...

Those CA's were really unhappy. Doesn't Arnold oppose workmans comp or something like that? I can't believe the Union votes he got...

[Gringo]

8. Does that include

keying cars with "Join Arnold" stickers?

[underpants]

11. Va.-Gilmore was a one issue candiddate and now Warner is fixing it

Jim Gilmore ran on the "No Car Tax" issue and won. In the midst of his horrible governorship his wife left him (he was clearly having an affair) and she moved in with Patricia Cornwell who lived in Richmond at the time. After serving as Governor(only one term at a time in Va.)he was the head of the RNC until he was unceremoniously booted out, everyone knows that Rove is the de facto head of the RNC right now.

Mark Warner won the election in 2001 and has spent the first year and a half fixing the mess left by Gilmore and before him our now junior Senator George Allen. Those two fired a ton of people from VDOT (Dept. of Transportation) only to have to hire them back as contractors at ~150% of the original salaries.

Virginia was in the RED for last fiscal year, thank you Governor Warner. Warner came into office and flatly said that he had inherited the problem but that he would fix it and has. Of course our local right wing newsrag criticises him for a "lack of vision" for the future.

[radwriter0555]

12. GRAY DAVIS DIDN'T TRIPLE ANYTHING. DUH. PETE WILSON INSTALLED

the car tax.

Get informed please. THEN indulge in pointless rhetoric.

[radwriter0555]

14. BTW it's IMPOSSIBLE for your Action Figure to get rid of the car

tax. He'll fail on that, first and foremost.

Doncha know.

[underpants]

16. Didn't Wilson also write the energy deregulation law?

Or at least inact while he was in office?

[Tempest]

18. Wilson was the catalyst

I don't have my notes with me, but Wilson started the process with prodding from one of his energy industry buddies.

A Repug legislator wrote the final bill.

It was passed in 1996 by the Repug controlled Assembly.

[cally]

15. I read the paper on Sunday with all the quotes from folks

voting for the recall because of the car tax. One woman said she was voting for the recall because she just had to pay $600 to register her MERCEDES! Too funny the ignorance of some.

Yes, the fee increase was automatic due to a law signed by Wilson.

[kentuck]

17. You know, I listen to a lot of news and I read a lot but I did not know...

the details about the car tax. There was so much the media failed in reporting to the people. Another issue that they failed to discuss was the fact that the new budget had cut the deficit to $8 or $9 billion dollars. But they kept reporting the deficit as $38 billion?? These were important points to know. I wonder how many voters in California were even aware of these facts?

[Tempest]

19. "I wonder how many voters in California were even aware..."

Just the ones who read the L.A. Times.

The rest of California's newspapers suck, big time.

[Gin]

20. Davis said on larry King that the Gov. would re-imburse the cities for

lost revenue when the previous Gov. cut that tax...there is no money to cut the checks so the tax went back into effect..he stated the tax was the same level as it was then..

In Virginia our car tax was a yearly personal property tax and very high on new cars in particluar, anywhere from 5-700...that was reduced as the vlaue of the car reduced. I am happy to see it gone (almost gone) and knew when that Republican fool ran on cutting that tax, there would be financial trouble.