SEIU pushes for oil, tobacco, liquor taxes

The state’s biggest labor union is launching a $1-million TV advertising campaign promoting new taxes on the oil, tobacco and liquor industries in hopes of dissuading lawmakers from adopting the deep social services cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Republican lawmakers and Schwarzenegger have vowed not to raise taxes to bridge the state’s projected $24-billion deficit, but officials with the Service Employees International Union hope the 30-second TV ad being aired around the state will drum up support for higher levies on certain industries.

The governor wants to eliminate the state’s welfare-to-work program, health insurance for the working poor and student grants, among other programs.

“The governor’s proposed cuts-only budget will destroy the California we know,” said Eliseo Medina, SEIU executive vice president.

SEIU hopes to reverse deep cuts aimed at the state’s 300,000 home-care health workers, many of them members of the union. Schwarzenegger and Republicans came away from last month’s special-election drubbing saying they were convinced that voters, who defeated a slate of budget-related ballot measures, had delivered a stout anti-tax message.

The union says that a poll it conducted after the election found that voters, though still smarting from a recent boost in the sales tax and other state fees, would support higher levies on some industries. The union would like to see a nearly 10% charge on oil pumped from California, saying it might generate around $1 billion from the oil industry, along with tax hikes on alcohol and cigarettes.

Those businesses contributed more than $2 million to the campaign in support of the ballot measures. In coming weeks, Medina said, the union will poll again to determine if public support for corporate tax hikes has grown.

Ultimately, he said, SEIU’s hope is to persuade enough Republicans in each house to join with the majority Democrats for the two-thirds legislative vote required for tax increases. Several of the half-dozen GOP lawmakers who voted for tax increases in February have been targeted with recall campaigns.

“We hope to coalesce enough public support to show these guys [Republican lawmakers] that they shouldn’t be afraid,” Medina said.

-- Eric Bailey in Sacramento

Comments

[tony]

We just voted for no tax increases, and reduced spending. Let this bunch of crooks also know as the SEIU waste their money on tv adds, it still is not going to change the fact that the majority of CA does not want new taxes and wants the state to spend only what it has....Yes some things will be cut but if the gov actually had the guts some of the most useful programs can be saved, but most in the gov are crooks and have been payed off and are unwilling to cut programs and services they have been given money for.

[Nevada Fisherman]

The tax increases are going to hurt commercial activity in California..This actually hurts our economy in Nevada since we get fewer visitors from California at our casinos. Already we are seeing more high net worth individuals moving to tax free Nevada (zero state income and zero corporate tax). Our governor is not well liked by everyone but he is insistent on keeping taxes to a minimum. The employees in the union will just have to get by on less and the executives in the union will have to live on less than $500,000.

[Steve]

NO NEW TAXES PERIOD.

[Tax Payer]

I thought the SEUI was the welfare while working program. These unions care nothing about anything except themselves. They're the main reason California is so screwed up, not a single one of them could keep a job in the private sector where results are expected for your salary (see teachers, cashiers, etc.).

Hopefully one day we'll be free of these mediocre cretins who live off our taxes, California has enough labor laws in place to elimiate unions forever. I hope the Gov. does a "Reagan" and fires them all.

[Jake]

How about the SEIU use that television money and buy some food and clothes for their $9/hr health care and janitorial workers?

[The moon]

i can't believe the SEIU does not understand the message that was sent to them durning the last vote. Not only did we say no..we meant no. How can they be asking to keep their funding when they cannot even get out kids to graduate from high school. Their whole solution to the problem is to keep coming back to the tax's payers and asking for more money. Fix our school problems first..get kids to start learning again and graduating from hight school and when they have successfully accomplish that then we will reconsider their request for more funding.

[mkinla]

Go SEIU! Go! Protect the working families in California!

@Tony: Why would you rather cut services and cut the meager pay of home healthcare workers than tax big oil? Are YOU big oil Tony?

It's been proven again and again that it costs the state a lot less to provide these services than it would to have the elderly and ill hospitalized for thousands of dollars a day.

And it's been proven that if the external costs of fossil fuels--such as sky high asthma rates in urban areas thanks to diesel pollution--were actually applied, we'd be paying $20 a gallon for gasoline.

Won't even get into what tobacco use costs the taxpayer.

It's about time corporations started paying their fair share!

[Mark Moshlak]

This time I have to go against SEIU's idea of raising taxes on certain industries because later it will be other industries, and then more after that. If anyone knows about California oil, it's not the best, difficult to refine, and we're already slapping oil companies around as it is. Ask for a hike, watch them take a hike. They don't need our oil. Liquor and Tabacco seems to be the turn to every time money is needed. Now I don't smoke or drink but even I have to hold up my hand to this one. For one thing if more people quit from it the money won't mean a damn thing and the same goes for drinking. That's good that people quit, but solves little in the end. SEIU doesn't like the state of our state but the choices are hard ones. It sucks but it's time to live within our means.

I have ideas but they're too much to share here and it's limited space...

[Roger Pariseau]

This is an excellent example of why all government workers and contractors must be non union! All government salaries, especially those of our elected "leaders," should be determined by popular vote. If our state would "go Theory X" and fire all upper level "managers," we'd be in fiscal clover.

[Buck]

The solution to the State's problems must include revenue sources as well as spending cuts. But let us consider ALL the possible sources of revenue, not just those that impact marginalized groups and/or disfavored activities. One possibility would be to treat associations the same as corporations. Why should Union Dues not be taxed in the same manner as the revenue of other businesses?

[K]

I would like to propose a 50% state income tax on all the employees of the seiu that will go directly to the general fund to pay for themselves. That way they can avoid layoffs and get the same tax increase they want to give to us.

[Cassandra Washington]

Don't these people realize the Federal Government just levied a huge tax increase on tobacco? This will only drive the market out of state and underground. And, if people quit smoking and others buy from out-of-state sources, how much revenue would that bring in?

[D Anderson]

So the SEIU wants to increase the burden on working people by making them pay more for gas, drinks, and cigarettes? Won't this further hurt the image of unions? So much for claiming they are the champions of working men and women.

[James Andrews]

They just don't get it. We are wanting taxes CUT not raised.

[mkinla]

You can thank the unions for your 40 hour work week, your health care (*if you're fortunate enough to still be covered), your safe work places, your vacation and your minimum wage! Unless you people are millionaire shareholders in these corporations, you need to start thinking about the 98% of working Americans, and stop ditto-heading the rest of us into the poorhouse! Start voting and thinking in your own best interests!

Also, I hope none of you or your families need home healthcare any time soon, because when these programs get gutted because any tax is a bad tax, we'll all suffer.

[tony]

@mkinla.... No I have no interest in oil,tobacco or beer companies...but the fact is we voted for no new taxes. So what you are saying is we should raise the prices on oil and tobacco because they are bad for you and the enviroment, what happens when the price is too high and people stop driving and buying fuel or quit smoking....oops looks like no more revenue coming in and we are back in the same situation.. You can not fix a budget by raising taxes all the time, the government need to trim down and spend within their means just like everyone else...

[Henry]

mkinla sure knows all the talking points for the union. Let's see.... Union parole officers working 220 hours of overtime in a month because anything over 40 overtime and it pads their pension, instead of hiring more union worker for those hours. SEIU spending $85M on a headquarters, and $33M in elections. $1m for this. Union had a time and a place, just like everything else. Now they're corrupt and steal money from others and now their own members. If your job was worth what the union says it is, you wouldn't need a union. It isn't. I hired my own eldercare out of pocket because the union loser that was sent to me stole half the crap in the house, ate the food, and rang up the phone.

[Marcos El Malo]

Why didn't the SEUI support the propositions that would have avoided our current dire straits? Why didn't they spend $1 million on getting their workers out to vote?

The SEUI has been and is being short sighted.

[D.B. Kramer]

Hello SEIU--Keep it up! Then everyone will be bankrupt including you! When the avalanche of corruption and debt
snowball you will be at the bottom of the pit with the rest.