Flap’s Saturday California Collection: June 4, 2011
Steinberg’s local tax bill has become a state budget bargaining chip
A controversial bill by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to give local governments broad new taxing authority has rattled the industries whose products and services are targeted.
Business groups – including oil, tobacco and alcohol interests – have kicked opposition efforts into high gear, with one group launching radio ads and mail pieces blasting the bill.
“This is the most intense threat that we’ve seen,” said Scott MacDonald, a spokesman for the business-backed coalition Californians Against Higher Taxes. “It’s got everyone’s attention.”
By most accounts, that’s just what Steinberg wants. The measure has become a key bargaining chip in state budget negotiations that could leverage agreement over Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to extend state sales, income and vehicle taxes.
“If we can reach this agreement over the next week, which I believe is vital for public education and public safety in this state, I will then not move (the bill),” Steinberg said this week.
Republicans criticize Democrats’ local tax push
Frustrated by the difficulty of raising taxes in the Legislature, California Democrats want to broaden the ability of cities, counties and school districts to do it themselves. But Republican lawmakers on Friday suggested they’re going about it in a sneaky way.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said earlier this week that he would make a local tax hike proposal part of the state budget package, thinking that would make it exempt from being challenged in a statewide ballot referendum.
On Friday, Assembly Republicans said they had obtained a legal opinion from an attorney for the Legislature suggesting the public does have the right to overturn Steinberg’s local tax plan if it’s signed into law.
“His measure flies against the will of the people and just shows how hungry Democrats are for taxes even when voters have shown no appetite for them,” said Darrel Ng, a spokesman for Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway of Tulare.
Boeing lays off 100 workers in Huntington Beach due to end of space shuttle program
With the nation’s space shuttle program coming to a close, Boeing Co. issued layoff notices Friday to 100 employees in its Space Exploration division at Huntington Beach.
The last workday for the workers is scheduled to be Aug. 5, pending completion of the final shuttle mission. Space shuttle Atlantis is slated to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 8.
Boeing handed 60-day advance layoff notices to approximately 510 employees companywide. In addition to the 100 workers in Huntington Beach, about 260 employees in Houston and 150 at Cape Canaveral received pink slips.
The Chicago based-company said some of its workers were put on other programs, such as development work on the International Space Station and on a seven-person space capsule that’s designed to carry astronauts into outer space.
Many of the engineers in Huntington Beach have worked on the shuttle program for their entire careers.
One third of teens not getting PE
More than a third of California teenagers are not participating in school-based physical education, according to new numbers from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
The policy brief blames cuts in funding and exemptions that allow high schoolers to opt out of two years of PE.
Only 42 percent of California teens report participating in PE on a daily basis, the study found, and more than 80 percent of all teens fail to meet federal recommendations for physical activity.
Enjoy your Saturday!