Sometimes taxes are necessary

Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times discusses California's Governor Brown's tax proposal:

We're not talking about peanuts. The average hit for those taxes is $260 per person each year, or $1,040 for a family of four. But what's the cost of not extending them?

It would be huge, and it's not just liberals who are saying so. After looking at what the effect would be on education, healthcare and public safety, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the extension as long as the deal includes future spending caps and pension reform.

California is, in fact, a relatively high-tax state, though not the highest. In 2009, the combined state and local tax burden was 10.6% of personal income, as opposed to the 9.8% national average. As my colleague George Skelton pointed out earlier this month, state general fund spending has dropped by billions in recent years, with next year's spending per $100 of personal income projected to be the lowest since Ronald Reagan was governor.