Classic Los Angeles by Russ Allison Loar, licensed under CC
LA County Ballot Measure A would double the county’s sales tax increase from a quarter to a half cent – a fact conveniently left out of the main website supporting the measure –while shoveling another billion dollars every year into homeless programs that don’t work.
The quarter-cent tax increase that LA voters passed in 2016 expires in 2027, so it will still be in effect if Measure A also passes. Thus, for the next two years, Measure A essentially triples the amount of money taken from taxpayers’ wallets to fund homelessness programs
Moreover, the measure doesn’t include a mechanism of alteration. If voters end up changing their mind, they can’t even revisit it later.
Like other regressive sales tax hikes, this homelessness tax would hit working class residents the most. Struggling families will have to pay a higher percentage relative to their income for basic household goods like clothing, school supplies, and food, than wealthier families. In a city ranked among the costliest in the U.S., raising sales taxes only serves to make it more unaffordable.
Local businesses will feel the full brunt of the consequent decrease in consumer spending. Considering that LA County is already one of the most expensive places to do business in the country, a sales tax hike only serves to hurt local business further.
Adding insult to injury, for double the taxes, most LA county residents aren’t getting anything in return.
Rather than spending the money on something useful, like LA’s crumbling infrastructure, dirty beaches, or sky-high crime rates, the county wants to focus on making it easier to be homeless – not to be confused with decreasing the homeless population: that would fall into the useful category. Supporters simply want to make homeless people more comfortable being homeless.
This approach, which characterizes the homeless policy in most Democrat-run cities, has never worked. Homeless shelters and housing units might help get some people off the streets, but they do nothing to decrease homelessness.
Besides, at costs exceeding 700,000 per unit, and a budget of around FY a billion in 2024, LA county was only able to decrease unsheltered homelessness by 9%. Keep in mind, that percentage is merely how many homeless people were placed into houses, shelters, or hotels. The homeless population has exploded by 40% in the past five years, and the $24 billion that LA county wasted during that time did nothing to quell the surge. There’s no indication, on the initiative or otherwise, that anything will be different if voters choose to spend more come November.
Despite all the money pouring in to get these people sheltered, almost none of them actually manage to leave. Does the county expect to house them – using taxpayer money – forever?
The answer is unclear, yet about sixty percent of the money would be going to subsidized housing and other programs.
Perhaps just as troubling, thirty-five percent of the money would be going to “affordable housing”, rent relief, and legal assistance for tenants at risk of eviction. In a desperate attempt to keep people off the streets, the county has resorted to any available means to prevent people from being evicted. If this means paying renters’ bills for them, LA County’s willing to do it. If this means handing them free lawyers, even if they’re squatters, LA County’s willing to do it.
If the initiative doesn’t already display an astonishing lack of care for the people of LA and their concerns, it only gets more baffling when one delves into the exact mechanisms outlined in its writing.
Allowing cities a degree of autonomy when it comes to how they spend the money would result in outcomes that don’t reflect the measure’s goals – because the measure’s goals are ridiculous. Therefore, the county has elected to manage the money itself, without any input from city governments.
If there’s any organization structure that has historically demonstrated its ability to allocate resources, it’s a top down, centrally planned government program with no clear leadership structure. At least, that’s what Measure A’s writers seem to believe.
Lacking a specific overseeing body, the labor council of unions and non-profit organizations that the measure wants to establish will likely take the lead. These organizations, whose express purpose is to advocate for interest groups, not the people, will end up supervising over 20 billion a year in taxpayer money. This management structure demonstrates a remarkable distrust in the people of LA to make decisions on what programs their money should be going to.
Just as infuriatingly, the measure’s marketing doesn’t even mention that it involves a tax, let alone that it will double, or even triple, voters’ taxes.
Tommy Newman, vice president of United Way, a sponsor of the bill, claims that “in the research the campaign has done, the primary concerns voters have are not about the sales tax increase…The primary concerns… are how this money is going to be spent, what is it different than what we were doing before and what will the results be.”
If that were true, the campaign wouldn’t have to hide the tax. Regardless, the measure doesn’t contain any new ideas: it’s simply a repackaging of policy LA has already tried, policy that didn’t work last year, and policy that won’t work going forward.