No on Measure A

Municipal authorities need to find more creative ways to resolve the budget deficit than increasing the sales tax on goods and services.Measure A is not the way to do it.

This measure would raise the tax from 9%—to which it was increased recently by Proposition 30—to 9.5%. This tax rate would put Los Angeles in third place among the cities with the highest sales tax in the country.

The purpose of Measure A—and consequently its urgency—is to cover a $216 million deficit in the local budget. In this case, it is hard to understand why the authors of this proposal in the municipal government did not make the increase temporary, just like Proposition 30. That way, it would have helped with the emergency and allowed the new mayor and City Council members to tackle spending in a more efficient way. Making it temporary would have helped the probabilities of success of the measure.

Nevertheless, Measure A permanently imposes the increase of a regressive tax that is detrimental to lower-income sectors, like Latinos. They are the ones who will be paying a higher percentage of their income with this tax.

On the other hand, we believe that rejecting the measure won’t immediately endanger public safety. The effects will be felt gradually, giving recently elected municipal authorities and those who are continuing in their positions a chance to achieve real savings within the city.

Finally, increasing taxes will bring money into the city’s coffers but it discourages commerce in Los Angeles, since people can buy the same product in a neighboring city at a lower price because the sales tax is lower.

Implementing another sales tax increase is not the solution. The pockets of taxpayers cannot be the ones that are always sacrificed. Vote No on Measure A.