San Diego’s Democrat politicians back a proposed state law to create a new regional government agency to impose tax hikes for government-subsidized housing projects
San Diego politicians already have multiple ways to try to raise your taxes - and now they are backing a move in Sacramento to create a new county-wide government agency to impose more tax hikes.
Introduced by State Senator Ben Hueso (D) of San Diego, Senate Bill No. 1105 would establish the San Diego Regional Equitable and Environmentally Friendly Affordable Housing Agency.
The proposed county-wide government agency would be able to impose a wide-variety of tax hikes on San Diegans - including a parcel or property tax, a gross receipts business license tax, a special business tax, specified special taxes on real property, a commercial linkage fee and a special documentary transfer tax.
The new agency’s mission would be to create new “equitable and environmentally friendly” housing in San Diego County — basically involving government raising your taxes to then subsidize big developers who still build expensive housing units. Recent studies have highlighted the waste, fraud and abuse in government-subsidized housing projects with the cost-per-unit skyrocketing to as much as $1 million.
Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California, is leading opposition to the proposal and the associated tax hikes it would authorize.
“This is nothing more than another ‘tax-and-spend’ boondoggle proposal that will increase the already sky-high cost-of-living in San Diego in order to line the pockets of special interests that back politicians,” DeMaio says.
DeMaio argues that while San Diegans do need to build more housing, the answer isn’t to create another government bureaucracy with tax-raising authority.
DeMaio says the proposed agency is modeled after the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) which is a county-wide government agency created by state law to impose taxes on San Diegans for road and transportation projects. Since SANDAG’s creation decades ago, billions in tax hikes have been imposed on San Diegans but the agency has come under heavy criticism lately for diverting the funds from projects originally promised to voters.
DeMaio says the proposal is nothing but a shell game to generate campaign contributions for politicians and reward their political backers. DeMaio points out the bill would require the agency to enter into a specific countywide project labor agreement (PLA) with the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council and the San Diego Housing Federation - a collection of unions and developers who support only Democrat politicians for office.
“Unions contribute to Democrat politicians' campaigns using union dues from developers and contractors working on projects, the Democrats raise your taxes, then Democrats set up union-only PLAs and use your tax dollars to pay the unions for a contract,” says DeMaio.
DeMaio and Reform California argue that the solution to the housing crisis isn’t to throw money down the drain, but to cut costly regulations and unnecessary mandates. DeMaio says that process will begin by electing reform-minded candidates in the 2022 election who will work to restore the voice of Californians — not liberal special-interests — in our state government.
That’s why DeMaio is urging all Californians to join the campaign today to flip key seats in the 2022 election and make California more affordable.
“We can cut the red tape and create new housing without the corruption and tax increases — we just need candidates willing to do it,” says DeMaio. “That’s why we need your help today to elect these candidates in 2022,” he concluded.
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