ANNUAL FOLLOW THE MONEY REPORT PROVES TAXES ARE TOO HIGH AND OUR GOVERNMENT IS MISMANAGING OUR MONEY

By Eric Eisenhammer, HJTA Director of Grassroots Operations

Every year as the tax filing deadline approaches, HJTA takes an honest look at the waste, fraud and abuse that Sacramento’s political establishment commits every year with our hard-earned tax dollars.

Our Follow the Money report is a must-read at a time when people of all political perspectives ask themselves whether it’s really necessary or appropriate for taxpayers to pay so much and get so little from our government in return.

This report is consistently one of our most shared resources on social media because it transcends so many partisan divisions. While citizens can disagree on many issues of policy, most people can agree the types of abuses covered in Follow the Money are unacceptable.

Among the examples discussed in this year’s report are the following:

• The estimated cost of California’s high-speed train jumped by another $10 billion, with the current price tag now clocking in at $128 billion. This train was originally approved by voters in 2008 at an estimated cost of $33 billion.
• State legislators took trips to Egypt and Japan to discuss ways to combat climate change. Ironically, international travel is also believed to contribute greatly to climate change.
• A Bay Area county paid a woman $2.45 million to write a book about the county, which she copied from Wikipedia.
• The City of San Francisco budgeted $1.7 million for a single restroom.
• A California state custodian received $185,000 in pay over four years even though he stopped working after only one month.

The failure of our state’s political leadership to competently manage our tax dollars, combined with their continued creation of a hostile business climate, has contributed to a $20 billion budget deficit and the second annual year of population decline in California.

Many analysts predict California will stagnate economically for the foreseeable future, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The first step is simply for our political leaders to acknowledge a problem actually exists.

The Follow the Money report is always released on Tax Day. You can find it on our website at https://www.hjta.org/studies-and-reports.