November 26, 2004

Sales Tax Is Not the Answer to Crime
By James Preston Allen, Publisher  

     This nation, this state and Los Angeles in  particular are running  on the adrenalin  of fear fueled not only by terrorism and the promoted fear of terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also by an entertainment industry that feeds this fear nightly with a menu of ever-expanding crime shows that gives the impression that we are a culture awash in crime. This, even as crime rates have diminished dramatically since the early 1990s, and the official incarceration rates is less that one percent of the general population in California—which by the way has the third largest prison population in the world, behind China and U.S. federal prisons system. The State of California alone spends some $5.7 billion annually to house just 163,500 inmates, 42,000 of which are Third Strikers. We are paying far too much for this small percentage of the population and we still don’t feel safe. So what’s up?
     Recently, after the County sales tax failed on the November 2 ballot, that would have funded more law enforcement officers, both LA City Mayor James Hahn and Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced in Wilmington that they were working on getting a City sales tax increase to be placed on the 2005 ballot in the City election. This is a patently wrong approach for all of the right (wing) reasons. Not only is the sales tax a fundamentally regressive tax, which means it affects low income payers more than high income ones, but in an era in which the City relies more on sales tax income for general revenue it should be promoting increased sales within the city, not chasing business away with higher sales taxes. Especially taxes on those who can least afford them.
     The real solutions are not simple, nor are they costly, knee-jerk conservative quick fixes. The Hahns—like the rest of us—need solutions that are better thought out and more in line with their true political leanings. The problem to be solved is not more officers at a cost of about $80,000 per officer, but how to reduce crime through a city-wide, department-by-department, strategy. By this I mean a continued program of civic and social spending that increases job opportunities, more and better quality of life investments, such as parks, open spaces, after school programs in both sports and the arts, and an earnest attempt to end homelessness and hunger inside Los Angeles .
     I admit that this is a much taller order than simply putting one thousand more officers on the streets, but at $80,000 per cop, there are a lot of social problems that can directly be linked to crime that could be paid for with $80,000,000. You have to start with the programs that we know already work, like the Toberman gang prevention unit here in San Pedro, but there are others. Property crimes are one of the largest categories reported by the LAPD and most of these can ultimately be linked to drug addiction. My question is how many more drug intervention councilors can we hire with $80,000 than we can cops?
    I could go on with my arguments about less law enforcement and more social spending solutions, but I fear that some of my favorite detractors will start calling me a bleeding-heart liberal. This is the same fear that the Hahns ultimately have, too. But for these same detractors, I have only this to say politely—go jump in the San Pedro Bay—for it has been proven over the course of history that those societies that have risen to the highest levels of culture have also based their governments on the more liberal basis of freedom for the times in which they were born. The points at which they became reactionary and repressive heralded the beginning of their decline from greatness. I am more afraid of this fate before us than I am afraid of being called a few names by those who don’t understand history.
     The problem, however, has always been how to pay for such social spending programs? I like to think that embedded in every question is its own answer, so I will ask this one carefully. If the majority of crimes in a city such as Los Angeles are property crimes, then shouldn’t the tax to pay for prevention be related to that which is being protected? Shouldn’t it be related to real property? And don’t those who have the most to lose need the protection the most?
     I would suggest that it would be far easier to convince the majority of LA voters to pass a service fee (a tax by any other name) of half of one percent related to high income properties over say $2 million of estimated value than it will be to pass a sales tax. Ease of passage is not the point, though. The point is that in taxation there should be some direct link between the use of the tax and that, which is being taxed, just like there should be a relationship between a crime and its punishment. More police officers is not the only solution for solving crime, or making you more safe, it is one of the most expensive though.