“It’s death by a thousand paper cuts,” complains Morgan, whose restaurant changed fine dining in Calgary.
“Economics 101 says during hard economic times governments shouldn’t raise taxes. But no, every level of government — the city, the province and the feds — have hiked our taxes and other things,” adds Morgan.
“Beer taxes, liquor taxes, the carbon tax, business taxes, for the privilege of operating a business in this city, the hike in the minimum wage we could handle, but then Rachel Notley mandates that on Jan. 1, holiday pay is going up by 25 per cent,” explains Morgan.
Restaurant owners are also hit with new rules that forbid employers or employees to bank hours for a day off in lieu. Now if a waiter works overtime, they must be paid, time-and-a-half, rather than get extra time off later.
“It’s nickel and dime, nickel and dime at the very worst of times,” says Morgan, who is sad for his staff who have yet to find work. “These people in power are bozos, they have no clue what’s going on out here and the pain they’re causing. They just keep on socking it to us.”
As a small business man here in the Golden State, I can tell you that nickel and diming the productive members of society. When we can't write off our very high state income taxes, it's going to be a killer. The idiot state also just raised the gas tax 11 cents a gallon. Everything here is taxed, then when you need the government's approval for something, there's fees, inspections, hassles, and threats.
Characteristically, someone productive wants to build something that will enhance business. To do that requires a huge fee up front to the state agency from whom you need approval, and that fee is non refundable if the state 'crats decide not to approve you. This gives them enormous leverage, so instead of a clean approval in return for your money, they want you to add this, or pay for that, before you get the OK. The expensive additions can seem endless, and the deeper in you go, the harder it is to back out and lose all you've invested. One guy I know of had to pay thousands to develop a Swainson's hawk nesting area that was something like twenty miles from the project he was trying to get going.
These government types are indeed bozos, clowns, locusts, hateful bastards.
Joseph Smith once said that a country has a lot of ruin in it, meaning that a lot can go badly wrong before true disaster hits, and California has a lot more ruin in it than Calgary, Canada, but the cushion isn't limitless.
I feel for the folk trying to make a buck through hard work, risk taking and imaginative marketing there, but it's bad all over when the bureaucrats get the regulatory power to loot your bank account whenever they can.
TFRP (Tar, Feathers, Rope, Pole)
What's the difference between a leech and a politician? After the leech is finished sucking your blood it drops off. Politicians never stop.
ReplyDeleteBetter to work under the table...or leave CA
ReplyDeleteSorry, but if you are a resident of a state with high state income tax rates (because your state needs more and more $$$ to support its unsustainable programs), vote for a tax rate reduction with your feet. Go somewhere else where the tax rate is lower, or better yet, zero. Don't expect the rest of us US to subsidize your residency and business there with federal tax breaks. Are you getting it now that government should provide less, not more?
ReplyDeleteI would if I could. Mrs. CW is already planning an exit on retirement, but that is multiple years off. In the meantime, all I can do is fight back.
DeleteI think that's Adam Smith you're quoting: “There is a lot of ruin in a nation.”
ReplyDeleteThe once- Golden State is now the Brown State, so I don't know how much ruin is left here. I do know that the Democrats are going full speed ahead, to ruin as much as they can!
Joseph Smith was the founder of Mormonism. (Hmmm- there's a lot of ruin in multiple wives, too, come to think of it.)
What an error! Thanks for the correction, it is Adam Smith I meant to quote.
DeleteI don't even know where to start with comments on this one.....Can you and I see the problem here?!!??!?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a rhetorical question....just wondering if maybe that question could be posed to a liberal some time. Wonder what they would say or if they would acknowledge that "yep, maybe we went too far!!!"
Steve
We fought it for many years. But then Brown called me a freeloader for objecting to the largest tax increase in CA's history. That was the last straw, so we bought a place in the Boise, ID area and are freeloading our asses (and my company) out of the state in June.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be difficult leaving our family, we're 4th and 5th generation CA natives, but flights are cheap and the drive is pretty easy.