Government Spending
The state of California contains a tremendous amount of bureaucracy, much of it hidden, much of it wasteful, and much of it irrelevant to the typical Californian.
One such bureaucracy is the California Travel and Tourism Commission.
Created in 1995, CTTC (all good bureaucracies have a snappy acronym) is funded by an assessment on every business in the tourism industry with revenue of more than $1 million. These assessments totaled almost $7 million last year. The money it spends is not strictly considered tax money, which is how such things are defined in Sacramento.
CTTC works to coordinate marketing that promotes California’s $80 billion-per-year tourism industry. This industry, in turn, generates $5 billion in state and local taxes a year while employing 900,000 Californians.
Recently the budget subcommittee, upon which I serve, voted to increase CTTC’s budget with $5 million of general fund tax money,an increase not sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nor even by CTTC itself. My Republican colleague and I voted “no,” it should be noted, while the three Democrats on the committee voted “yes.”
By CTTC’s math, this $5 million of taxpayer money should generate $70 million in added tourism revenue. Employing such logic, perhaps we should consider spending $50 billion to promote California in an attempt to balance our budget! The only problem is that every tax dollar “invested” in this program only generates 89 cents in state and local tax revenue.
Aside from feeding the CTTC bureaucracy an additional $5 million of tax money, the larger question is: Are CTTC’s functions a proper role of state government? Might the industry itself operate a program to coordinate its marketing message to the outside world? If it makes sound business sense, why do we need to employ the coercive arm of government to force business owners to file more paperwork?
Additionally, as I recall from my college science and math classes, there is the concept of the “significant figure” in any numbers discussion that may be difficult to precisely measure:
CTTC claims that for every dollar it spends, it adds $14 to the tourism industry. Thus, its $7 million budget should add $98 million in tourism spending. It also claims credit for increasing California’s domestic travel market share from 9.7% in 1998 to 11.5% in 2004.
Unfortunately, the facts do not back CTTC’s assertion. The amount of increased tourism spending that can be attributed to CTTC’s efforts are something on the order of one-fifteenth of the gain in total tourism spending in the state,not even close to the claimed improvement.
CTTC’s impact on the state’s tourism industry would be more than overshadowed by other factors that drive the travel industry, such as foreign currency exchange rates, the increased cost of resort labor due to workers’ compensation and taxes, California’s sky-high airline fuel tax and environmental regulations.
If we really want to get serious about helping California’s travel and tourism industry, as well as every other kind of business in this state, we can do better than spending an additional $5 million on a bureaucracy.
Instead, we can let our taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned money. We can finish reforming workers’ compensation. And we can reduce the millions of hours spent every year filling out government forms to comply with regulations.
Chuck DeVore
Assemblyman
R-Irvine
Florida state Sen. Al Lawson has proposed a 2-cents-per-roll tax on toilet paper. He says it’s needed to pay for wastewater treatment and sewer upgrades.
When it was pointed out that a tax on toilet paper might result in people using less of it, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush remarked, “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”
When combined with California’s notorious proposed “diaper tax,” it seems that even the most elemental of bodily functions is not immune from Democrats’ taxing ways.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Tom Umberg’s, D-Santa Ana, recent proposal to increase non-teacher school employee pensions by 25% shows what the unions really want to do with the additional money they claim is for schools.
After I wrote about this, and two newspapers wrote editorials against it, the bill was abruptly dropped. The sponsors said that it was just a “spot bill” and they never intended to move forward with it.
Uh-huh, sure.
Remember, it is not how much money we spend on schools. It is how we spend what we have.
John Campbell
State Senator
Steroids
I find it ironic that among the thousands of drugs available to our drug-crazed nation, the federal government has singled out steroids.
Not a day goes by that you don’t open your e-mail to find spam messages selling prescriptions. Open any magazine and you will find countless ads for prescription drugs. Turn on the television and you will see the same ads, with virility pills buying the most air time and media space. Then there are cigarettes and alcohol,the two most widely accepted non-prescription drugs in the world.
Drugs appear to be the quick-fix cure-all. If we have an aliment our doctors immediately prescribe a drug. When you ask about alternative natural remedies they become dead silent and say they aren’t allowed to talk about such remedies because they are not approved or recommended by the federal government.
If the hypocritical representatives of the federal government want to clean house they should start with their own medicine cabinets of drugs, including aspirin, which has been clinically proven to cause more deaths and health problems than any other prescription or over-the-counter drug, including steroids.
The biggest hypocrite is Gov. Schwarzenegger, who got where he is today through the use of steroids, now rubbing shoulders with the “ban steroid use” political powerhouses.
Americans have come to expect the benefits of drugs as it is woven into the very fabric of our lifestyle, down to even what we eat. We gamble on racing horses whose trainers pump up the thoroughbreds with steroids, and we consume beef and poultry enhanced by steroids.
How is sports-enhancement steroid use any worse?
Russell Niewiarowski
Santa Ana Heights
