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Comment by thomasahle | Hacker News Reader

As someone in the process of moving to California, this actually makes me more happy to go there.

I guess because I'm assuming the money will help improve things like infrastructure and homelessness problems, which are some of my main worries.

But then I'm also from Europe and would prefer if they increased taxes even more ️

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California has one of the highest state income taxes AND sales taxes in the country. Combined, they can easily total nearly 20%. Yet, the state is in massive debt and infrastructure projects go no where (https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Train-to-nowher...)

I live in California. Unfortunately you're going to be disappointed - California has the highest tax rates and the worst infrastructure. The failure to solve these problems isn't due to having too little money (states and countries with a fraction of California's wealth have solved these problems).

I agree with this assessment. We moved from FL (0% income tax, 1.5% property tax) to CA (9% for us income tax, 1.05% property tax) and the quality of the infrastructure is at best on par. Which was surprising. Our SALT taxes went up 5x and the services are similar quality.

It's rather unfortunate that tax increase as a solution is such a common fallacy. It's rather like immediately recommending a salary increase every time you encounter a failing employee.

As a California resident, I am pessimistic.

What we need is consolidation and streamlining of expenses, programs and maintenance. This, however, will serve to enable and cover over the poor policies and inefficiencies that are either causing, or at least failing to solve, the many issues we have in California.

I am very sympathetic to the idea, oft raised by critics of capitalism, that economies cannot grow forever. Why, too, would we not have the same critique of government and its services ?

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