Meathead Economics

Good summary of the Rob Reiner led pre-school initiative in California:

"..But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small-business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs."

"And things may soon get worse, thanks to Rob Reiner, who played the liberal "Meathead" on the "All in the Family" sitcom in the 1970s and now plays the same part in real life. He and his rich Hollywood friends have put an initiative on the state's June ballot that would add a 1.7-percentage-point income-tax surcharge on "millionaires" with income over $400,000, with the proceeds earmarked for universal pre-school."

And most important:

"The state has been here before, as a new report from economist Arthur Laffer reminds us. In the early 1990s under Republican Governor Pete Wilson, the state raised its top income-tax rate to 11%, triggering one of the worst fiscal crises in the state's history. Tax revenue fell as high-income people fled the state, while public debt exploded. That tax surcharge was removed in 1995, but now the state's politicians want to do it all over again."

Read the whole article here.