Five months ago, elected officials across California salivated at the prospect of putting their favorite tax measures on the Nov. 4 presidential election ballot, just as voter turnout is expected to soar, especially among Democrats amenable to tax hikes and borrowing.
But with the election less than four months away, the ballot could wind up being overstuffed with financial requests at a time when voters are reeling from higher fuel prices, falling stocks and an economy on the skids.
The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to put a $30-million anti-gang tax on the ballot. The Los Angeles Community College District has prepared its own $3.5-billion property tax increase to repair and replace aging campuses -- and train students to use "green" technologies. And other tax boosts are expected to compete for voters' increasingly light pocketbooks.
"With the state of the economy, I think all tax proposals could be in serious difficulty," said Republican political analyst Allan Hoffenblum. "People are driving less, they're doing less."
As he supports the new anti-gang tax, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has also been pushing for a half-cent countywide sales tax increase to raise at least $30 billion over three decades for road and rail projects, including his much-touted subway to the sea. And the Los Angeles Board of Education is considering a $3.2-billion school construction bond measure, its fifth in a decade.
Those local tax items coincide with efforts in Sacramento to persuade voters to issue bonds -- that is, allow the state to borrow money -- for hospitals, high-speed rail and alternative-fuel vehicles.
Still, the pending competition has not discouraged Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the driving force behind the anti-gang tax, which would pay for arts, athletics and after-school programs for children.
Hahn, whose district includes several neighborhoods hard hit by gang violence, said traffic and crime are voters' prime anxieties right now, with or without the lagging economy. For weeks, she has been arguing that supporters of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will embrace the measure.
"I believe that the people who come out in November to possibly elect the first African American president of the United States are people who understand this concept of investing in our kids at the front end of their life, rather than the back end of their life," Hahn told a crowd of lobbyists and consultants earlier this week.
