Where Are Your Taxes Going? | Joe Vinatieri

We have some of the brightest people in the world here in California, and they're entrepreneurial, they're thoughtful, they're coming up with new ideas, but we have to incentivize them to do that. And you've heard about people moving out of California, and a lot of businesses have indeed left. They talk about regulation, and they talk about the cost of living, but part of that cost is taxation. My guest today is Joe Venetieri, mayor of Whittier, and a tax expert. Today he'll talk about why people are leaving California, and the impact of high taxes on the state. McDonald's started here, Carl's started here, Taco Bell started here, In-N-Out started here. There was just a great entrepreneurial spirit. When you're pushing people and they're leaving California, they're taking jobs with them, they're taking income with them, and those are tax dollars. I'm Siamak Rameh. Welcome to California Insider. Joe, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Glad to be here. This is a really interesting situation for me. When you asked me to come and meet with you, I thought, what's he want to talk to the mayor of Whittier about? So I'm kind of interested that we're here and talking. We've talked a little bit before we got started here. Yeah, and we would love to talk to you because you are a tax expert on California, and you're also a mayor. Yes. So we want to know... Two hats. We want to know what's going on with taxes in California, and we also want to know how the cities like yourself spend the money. What's happening with the money? Well, let me tell you about taxes. So my background is I'm a lawyer, but I was at the State Board of Equalization for a number of years. I'm still doing law practice, and I do basically property tax work, and I do sales and use tax, income tax, anything that relates to California. What we talk about California is if it moves in California, it gets taxed. So anything that moves gets taxed, and we're always coming up with new ideas and new ways of getting money in. So I basically defend companies and individuals and that in taxes. So when it comes to property tax, Proposition 13 and the like, that's what I do for a living, and it's a lot of fun. It's always challenging, especially California is very entrepreneurial. A lot of the things that start here, Silicon Valley, entertainment industry, the aerospace industry, most of that started here and has gone out from here. So what's going on in California? California, it depends upon who you're looking at, tax foundation, literature. California is either number two or number three in terms of taxation in the United States of America. New York's up there. Of the highest. Highest, yeah. New York's up there. Massachusetts is up there. New Jersey, California, we're the ones. And we, of course, in California, we have personal income tax and bank incorporation tax. We have sales and use tax. We have property tax. We have local business taxes and the like. And you go to other states, Elon Musk moved to Texas. Well, he's got operation there, but there's no personal income tax in Texas. Same thing in Florida. Now, those places have very high property taxes to make up for it, but we have this whole gamut of taxes just like New York and Massachusetts. So what it does, it keeps a guy like me busy, but it also brings in lots and lots and lots of revenue. So it's a situation where people are, and you've heard about people moving out of California and that. A lot of businesses have indeed left. They talk about regulation and they talk about the cost of living, but part of that cost is taxation. And we are a high tax state. The positive thing, the negative thing is that for sales tax, I think we're number two in the country. Income tax, we're like number two, I think. It just depends on how you look at it. But when it comes to property tax, we're like number 38 or 39 in the country, meaning our property tax is low, and that's because of Proposition 13. And we can say thank you to Proposition 13 because it keeps our property taxes low and keeps them predictable. A lot of these other states that don't have an income tax, they have a very high property tax. So when companies move out, a lot of it has to do with the tax numbers and the tax regulations. So that's something that's of concern to me. Take my tax hat off and put my mayor hat on. It's something we need to be concerned about as a people because those are good, good jobs. And a lot of it's manufacturing that's moving out. And so it's something that we as a state need to be concerned about. So what is the impact when you see these kind of companies, good manufacturing jobs, going to Texas? California's always had a great, great, great middle class. These jobs are middle class jobs. They're union jobs, they're non-union jobs, but they're manufacturing jobs, and they keep people gainfully employed so that they can afford to live here. When we have land values in California, which is as high as they are, it's most normal places what's a third of your income to afford your home. Here it's up to 50%. And when you lose those manufacturing jobs to other places, well, what's that going to do to people? They're going to end up with generally service jobs that don't pay, what, minimum wage? Well, nobody can live on minimum wage. In fact, minimum wage was never intended to live on it. It was to give you a means, to give you a bottom, and then you try to work hard to get some education or get into a really good skill, and then you get a good manufacturing job. We've had so many aerospace jobs here, for example, in Southern California, that have for generation to generation have really set the tone for the standard of living in those jobs. A lot of them were related to the government for aerospace manufacturing of new jets and rockets and that, and a lot of that stuff is moving out. So it has a bad, it can have a devastating effect on us, and the rich get richer, kind of, and the poor get poorer, and the middle class kind of moves out, and that's a real problem, in my opinion, here in California. Now, based on what you're seeing, is the state going to increase, keep increasing the taxes? Because there's been a trend that the income taxes have been going up, but now there is this trend of companies moving out, individuals moving out. Do you think they're going to continue increasing? Government always wants more money to spend, and what happens is when those jobs start moving out, what does that do to those who are losing their jobs? What does government have to do? They have to backfill it through different types of devices. Sometimes it's welfare, sometimes it's, you know, you name it, but as those jobs are moving out, well, now you've got people who don't have money to afford to live, so who's going to backfill that? It's the government, and the government is you and I, and it's those who are still here who are being productive, and we want to get those people back into jobs. We need to be providing incentives to not only keep people from moving out in businesses, but to bring them in. We have some of the brightest people in the world here in California, and they're entrepreneurial, they're thoughtful, they're coming up with new ideas, but we have to incentivize them to do that, and it doesn't incentivize them if we continue to increase taxes and put on regulation in the hopes of helping everyone. Don't get me wrong, but we get it backwards, I think, sometimes, and what we need to be doing is encouraging these businesses to come into California, and there is some of that going on. There are jobs, but it's not as bountiful as it used to be. As it used to be, right? Yes. And how was it in the past? So, in the 60s, this was the aerospace, and I keep saying aerospace because my dad was a metallurgical engineer, and when he got out of World War II, he found a job here doing rockets and doing technology for different types of applications of different types of metals, titanium, etc. And so, what happened during the 60s and the 70s, you had lots and lots of aerospace manufacturing going on in California. Then, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, a lot of that government work that was trying to get more and more airplanes in defense contracts, a lot of that was gone, so we lost a lot of that base here. And so, it was very plentiful in terms of those were good jobs, and there was manufacturing, and there was construction. The construction industry always led the way with jobs because there was manufacturing and housing going on. It was a very, very good time. Most of the fast food industry, where did it start? Right here. McDonald's started here. Carl's started here. Taco Bell started here. In-N-Out started here. There was just a great entrepreneurial spirit in Southern California with people coming in from other places where they had issues about, well, we can't do that culturally, or you don't look right, or that. People would come to California, and a lot of new people were coming in, and people were saying, well, I don't need to be hung up by the old stuff. I'm going to be creative. And so, you got a lot of the motion picture writing and all that was here because it was creative. Same thing with aerospace, same thing with restaurants. That was the way California was, and it's still that way to some extent in certain sectors. So, my concern always, and I'm going to take the lawyer and the tax hat off, and I'll put on the mayor hat. My concern always is for each generation to have it better than the generation before, which that means, basically, you've got to have the ability to have a good job, good opportunity for a good life, and that's the California dream. Folks, you've probably been hearing me talk about WireEFI for a while now. WireEFI has been getting a ton of phone calls from you, and I thank you for supporting an investment that actually helps people. A lot of people are talking about this investment, and I'd like to review the basics with you. First off, yes, it's true. You can earn up to 10.25% fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market or to the Fed. You can turn your income on or off, compounded, whatever you choose, and there are absolutely no fees. There are no restrictions on your principal if you ever need your money back, and you'll get your monthly statement with no surprises. 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The rest of it goes to Sacramento, and some of it comes back to the county for county services and back to the school districts. But the amount that comes back to the city of Whittier is seven cents. So seven cents on every property tax dollar comes back to Whittier. Seventeen cents to the fire department. Education into the state and to the county. So for us, on property tax, we're what we call a low property tax city. We can't fund police and all the services that we need on seven cents. So what that means then is for many, many cities in California who are low property tax, they rely basically on sales tax. And the sales tax, if it depends on what county you're in, we're in Orange County here at 7.75. L.A. County is 9.25 or 9.75, I'm not quite sure. Each county is different. That money, the city, though, however, gets what we call the Bradley Burns allocation. They get one percent of the sales tax dollar. So if in Whittier somebody goes to Carl's and buys a hamburger, whatever the tax is, one cent of that is going to come back to the city of Whittier. So what happens is a lot of cities live on that sales tax revenue because the property tax doesn't really give you what you need for providing public services. So you have the sales tax, and it depends upon where you're at, but local cities have ability, with the consent of the people, to increase that sales tax rate to make sure that more than that one percent comes back. And so cities have done that. We did that in Whittier because the property tax was difficult, and I'm very appreciative of the fact that people of Whittier, and we make sure that on that money that comes back, they know where that money is being spent. So you have the sales tax, and then, of course, you have personal income tax, and California's got some of the highest rates in the country. There is a bill in the legislature, a couple bills in the legislature, again, right now, that didn't make it through this session, but they'll be back in January to increase the income tax rate. And we have a millionaire's tax here, for example. If you make more than a million dollars, then there's a special extra tax that goes into a special fund. So the issue for me in California is, and this is where I come from, I guess, philosophically, we need to learn to live with what we bring in. We don't always need to be increasing. And if we can learn to live, we're fine. And part of the problem is we have last year, and it depends upon what time last year, we were up to possibly, I think, $75 billion surplus. I mean, can you imagine the swing? That's money that is more than three-quarters of all the states in the United States of America. So we have lots of money in California, but it depends upon the economy, and that's why we're in the deficit, although we have some good reserves and are appreciative of the fact that Sacramento, I think it's a $35 billion or $40 billion reserve for a rainy day, but it's for a rainy day. So it swings back and forth, and that's why the economy is so important, and that's why inflation, and that's so important because when you're pushing people and they're leaving California, they're taking jobs with them, they're taking income with them, and those are tax dollars. So we need to learn to be fiscally prudent and learn to live on what we have, and if we have a rainy day, we have a problem, then we deal with it. So you get these wide swings, and when you get the wide swings, they're talking about taxing. I'm trying to remember what the income tax is. It's like, I'm not going to say a figure because I don't know it right now, but a very small portion of people in the state of California fund, in essence, our personal income tax. Isn't it like the top 1% pay 50% of the personal tax? I think it's higher than that. Yeah, or more, okay. Yeah, I think it's higher than that. So these are people, Silicon Valley, Southern California, people who are doing very, very well, and part of what they're doing is they're providing jobs. Well, some of those people are moving, going to other states, and so we don't want that to happen. We want to keep those people here because they help provide jobs and provide what we need to do. So most of the money is not going to you guys, right, to the cities. Oh, no. Very little from what you're saying. Correct. And then you guys provide the police and fire. Yeah, we're at the local government level. Remember, we have local government. We've got city level, then we have county level, then we have state level, and then we have federal level. So at our local level, we're responsible for the police, responsible for the fire. We're responsible for the water. We're responsible for the parks. We're responsible for the libraries. We're responsible for the sewers. And I tell people, I said, you got a problem? You got a problem? That's why I always say local government is the best government there is because the government that's closest to the people is the most responsive. I said, you got a problem with your sewer? You're not going to call the congressman. You're going to call the mayor because it's got to get fixed. So we at local government, we are the ones who provide the basic essential services. County government does a lot of the social programs, mental health, juvenile delinquency, and that. They're the repository to make sure that the safety net, the people aren't falling through. That's basically what county does. They do also some of these also essential services depending upon where it is in the county. The last line of defense is our responsibility. That's why it's nonpartisan because everybody needs clean water. Everyone needs to be safe. It's got nothing to do with partisanship. That's one of the things that drives me nuts is we're talking about partisan things when it comes to public safety. When somebody does something, they're going to commit a crime. They don't look to see, oh, well, that person is this or that. No, it's all about opportunity in committing a crime. So public safety is our number one responsibility at the local government level. It's a tough thing right now, candidly, because of some of the things that we see going on. Where is the trend in terms of going back to the taxes? Is it going to go? You mentioned a couple of laws that didn't go through. Is there going to be a push to increase more taxes? Yes, yes. I just read about it yesterday, the number of bills. I'm a member of what we call California Taxpayers Association. They keep track of all the tax legislation. I'm trying to remember how many billion dollars of tax increases was proposed that didn't make it through. Governor Newsom, as much as I disagree with him much of the time, one of the positive things that he's done is he's held the line on tax increases because he knows well that the more you increase taxes, the less competitive we are as a state. And so he basically has told the legislature, and the legislature is partisan, and there's a lack of balance in Sacramento. We don't really have the two-party system that we need where we balance and we say, well, that's good, but that's not good, and we work things out. So there's been tax legislation galore that has been pushed this year, and he pretty much on most measures let it be known that he was not going to be supportive. And if you're not going to get the governor's signature, then what's the point? So there is insatiable appetite for more taxes because more taxes means more opportunity to spend. And was it back then when you, like 20, 30 years ago, was it the same? Did they always want to get more money? There was balance. You'd have a Republican governor and a Democrat legislature, or you'd have a Democrat, it would be the other way, and they were always talking, talking, and it was balanced. And sometimes when more money was necessary, they would work some things out. When it was clear that this is about governmental programs and we do really need this, things didn't go through. There was balance back then. We don't have that now. So there is nothing to stop it if there is more? Right now, under Proposition 13, in order to pass a tax, either at the local level or at the state level, there has to be a two-thirds vote. Two-thirds vote. Right now in Sacramento, there's a super majority of Democratic legislators, so they always have the two-thirds vote. The only issue is how far and whether the governor's going to go for it or not. That's the problem. There's just not the balance that we had even 10 years, 15 years ago. You are working with companies. How do they see the California state taxes? Do they make decisions based on the taxes? When companies make decisions about whether they're going to locate here or locate somewhere else, tax comes into it. There's no question about it. But also air quality regulation, and I'm talking manufacturing, cost of living, salaries, wages, and that. We're a high-cost state, taxes and all these things. And the government has a definite impact on this. I've had businesses, clients, that have moved out. And tax was not at the top, but there were some other things that were. And there's a lot of competition with other states. I mean, I don't know if people know this. There are states that actually have offices here in the Bay Area and in Southern California from other states. And they go out and they knock on the doors of medium-sized businesses and say, here's the benefits of coming to our state. We have this workforce. We have these incentives, these tax incentives, et cetera, et cetera. They are actually literally here taking our companies. And it's sad. And those are jobs, and that's tax revenue. So it's very competitive. California does have some programs to try to keep our businesses here, and I'm thankful for that. I think we need to have more. But we have something here that's very special, and it's been generation to generation. We have, when it comes to a lot of technology and that, we have a wonderful university system, both private and public, that trains people for high technology. I mean, there's a reason UC Berkeley, we have the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, which did all the work on splitting the atom. That came out of Berkeley. We have aerospace engineering, and that comes from the Cal Polys, for example, and universities in the Bay Area and in Southern California. So we have this wonderful higher education infrastructure for these types of industries, and it's paid off generation to generation. And my hope is, I think it's the case, my hope is that we will continue that, and the people in the know understand that in order for California to be competitive, and we were always at the top, us and like Massachusetts. The fact that Caltech is here, and there's only two, Caltech and MIT in Massachusetts. Look at where all the Nobel Prize winners come from. I mean, it's always been California. It's always been there. And the key is to make and continue to California be that way and to basically build on those building blocks. So we have some wonderful advantages here. We just have to balance it, though, with the cost of doing business. We have a wonderful workforce here of people who are very well trained, but we can't be so costly that they go to Texas or someplace else where the cost of living is lower, and they're doing a job on training their people there also. Did you ever imagine that there would be an office here from other states to recruit businesses? No. Why should that be? Why should there be an office from Texas, from Florida, from— and I'm not talking about blue versus red. It's got nothing to do with it. It's all about bringing businesses from our state to their states because their costs are lower. And I think, you know, Sacramento sometimes gets this. Sometimes they don't. That's where I talk about the balance again. We need to have balance. But there are people in Sacramento who understand this, that we're getting poached. We're getting poached by other states of wonderful businesses. I wish I'd known we were going to talk about this. I would have brought you a list of the businesses that have left just in the last two years. It's horrible. Those are jobs. Those are people. And we need to do everything we can to not only keep them here, but because of the attractiveness of California and our workforce in that, we have the opportunity to bring businesses here by giving them incentives. Now, they're going to be a higher-cost state. They're going to have to pay more in the way of wages. But you've got a lot of brain power in this state. Like I said, this place has always been entrepreneurial. New ideas come from California. And we need to build on that. Why is that? Why do you think this state has been so entrepreneurial and new ideas come? Because, like my dad, World War II, he's not going to go back to South Dakota. He loved it. It was great. But there's a different mindset here. And he found opportunity in doing different metallurgical applications and research. People come here, and they have new ideas, and they're encouraged. They're encouraged to come up with their new ideas and try it. And usually it doesn't work. But usually it doesn't work. Usually it doesn't work. But the fourth time, guess what? And that's the nature of the beast in Silicon Valley. That's how Silicon Valley started in Mr. Hewlett's garage and the semiconductor. Because we had Stanford. We had UC Berkeley there. And they were there. And we have that here. We have it up and down the state of California. And it's an attitude of not being afraid to try. Not being afraid to try. And, yeah, maybe you don't make it first time. But you try, try again. And that's a spirit that a lot of people here in California have. Before we continue, we would like to thank Shen Yun for sponsoring this channel. I lived in China for two years and experienced two different Chinas. One is the China we know now, unfortunately with communism. 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You go away feeling with a smile in your heart. Have to come. Life changing. Make sure you see it. Make sure you see it. Don't wait. Get your tickets now. There is a lot of regulations and new laws that people complain about in the business community. Do you think that this spirit might get affected by the regulation? You mentioned taxes going up. There's no question that if you want to encourage what we're talking about, you have to be very, very circumspect about what legislation you're putting into the hopper in Sacramento. Usually when they do legislation, assuming it's not social engineering stuff, and there's a lot of that in Sacramento. But let's say it's legislation to try to help... Social engineering is the DEI and board members. Yes, all that, exactly. But a lot of times there's legislation that has very good intent, but the problem is in the good intent you also have to see, well, what are the potential adverse consequences? And I don't think they always balance that and think that all the way through. I think when it comes to Sacramento, we don't always see that, in my opinion. And I think the question is, is this something that we really need? Does this really help the people? Or does it become a drag and have an adverse impact such that maybe people say, you know what, too much regulation, I'm out of here. Do you think the media has a role in all this, too? The media has a huge role in it. I think one of the problems that we have is there's not enough emphasis put on what's going on in California. I think we had that in the past, but we all know newspapers are shutting down. They're shutting down their Sacramento news bureaus, for example. They've done that. And you get much of your knowledge on the Internet. Well, the Internet isn't particularly objective, and I'm not sure that people are wise enough to understand and ask the question, well, what am I reading here? What's the source for this? And is this the truth? I think we've kind of gotten away from that. And the thing I've always appreciated about traditional media was in journalism classes, it was always about get to the facts, get to the facts, get to the facts, and then let the people determine, choose how they feel about what they've just read in the facts. I think there's a problem with that today, and I think we have traditional media is to a great extent gone, and to the extent it's there, I think there's a great deal of bias. And then so people are getting their information. I go to this. I'm looking at my iPhone here, and I look at this to get my facts, and that's kind of scary. I see that California, believe it or not, the bill just went through, it was signed by the governor to teach, in essence, I'm probably not saying this right, but to teach in high school, high school students how to look at social media and determine whether it's true or not. It's a little scary to me. If I've got a really good teacher who understands facts, it's okay because I think kids need to learn that. But you know what? It could be a little bit of social engineering also. And this day and age, there's concerns about government and objectivity and truth. Now, Joe, with all your experience, do you have any advice for Californians? And what you see, you're a mayor of your city, you've been involved with your city for many years, and you've seen the changes, what's happening in California, and you're a tax attorney, and you grew up here. Do you have any recommendations for Californians? Yeah, I do. I still think this is a great place to live. Our costs are high, and remember, California is primarily because of land costs. And this is the best state in the country. Geographically, there's no place like it in the United States of America. And intellectually, I don't really think there's any place like it in terms of opportunity and entrepreneurial spirit. But what we have to do is we have to make sure that we don't get so far afield into trying to be the leaders in social issues that we forget that at the end of the day, it's about raising a family and basic public safety and allowing parents to raise their children and providing the infrastructure for that and letting them be responsible for their children and not the government. As you can tell, conservative values is where I'm from. And just giving people opportunity to experience that. And that's what, in my community, I very much want to make sure that I'd like Whittier to be, for Southern California, the best place to raise a family. Safe, good schools, good water, an attitude of looking out for each other and volunteerism, helping each other from people who are young all the way through those who are older. I think that's what people want and I think that's what they really, really strive for. The question is, as government, are we going to get in the way of that or are we going to facilitate it? That's where I'm at. Do you have any other thoughts for our audience? I just want to encourage people. There's a lot of grass is greener syndrome going on right now. In other words, I don't like the way things are. I'm going to get a job somewhere else or there's more opportunities in other places. There's no question that we as a state have an issue in terms of the next generation being able to own a home in that. And that's a tough, tough issue for us. We haven't talked about it yet, but the state is pushing down on local government what we call these regional housing need assessment numbers. Whittier has 3,439 homes that we have to be able to provide and give a developer an opportunity. Whittier is a built-out city. And yet, at the same time we're being told we've got to do this, the Department of Finance is putting out numbers saying that, hey, population is going down. We lost a congressional seat. Population is going down. So we're being told by Sacramento on the one hand, you've got to build more houses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet, they got those numbers. Housing Community Development got that from the Department of Finance a number of years ago. And yet, the current numbers shows California's declining in population. So to force local government to come up with new housing opportunities is completely – there's a disconnect going on in Sacramento. So Whittier, for example, filed a lawsuit on it. We've joined a lawsuit saying, wait, you guys are – you don't even have your numbers right. You guys are the state government, and you can't get it right? How are we supposed to implement that? And you're telling us what to do? And in the meantime, my people are saying, I've already got too many crowded freeways, and we're a built-out city. Where are you going to put everybody? There's a disconnect with what's going on in Sacramento, state government, and what's going on at local government level. It seems like you guys, as a city, you're offering a lot of services for the amount of tax you're taking in. And most of it is going to the state government, right? Is there a lot of connection between what you guys are working together with the state-level government? Is there not mutual respect right now between the cities and the local government and the state? There is a definite divide between the state and what's going on in Sacramento and what's going on at the local government level. It's not what we at local government want. And it's not political, right? Does it matter if the local government is a Democrat or Republican? No. It's not really a partisan situation. It's philosophy of how I think state people think things should be happening at the local level. And our hope always is that when somebody who's at the local government level gets elected to Sacramento, that they'll take with them up to Sacramento and understand that, yeah, they've got to go through their process, and it's government. I mean, it's democracy. It's the most inefficient form of government in the world, but it's the best. And you get together, and you figure out what the issues are, and you come to some kind of conclusion, because at the end of the day, it's about what's best for all the people. And we're not having that the way we should right now. Do you think the state government is losing touch with the people, or do you think it's getting further away from the people? I think there has been a losing touch thing going on for a while now, and much of it just has to do with there's some philosophy issues going on. But the issues, I don't want to be Debbie Downer, all right, because there's a lot of stuff that we agree on. You know, water is a huge one. We should be agreeing more on public safety. We're not. My hope is that we'll be moving more back to common sense, more centrist position relative to public safety. There's a number of issues where they're really not partisan, but for some reason, we can't always get together. Can't we all get along? In the famous words of Rodney King. Joe Venetieri, Mayor of Whittier and tax expert, it was great to have you on California Insider. It's great to be here. And actually, when I walked in the studio, I looked at you and said, I've seen you on TV. So this is a great time. I'm glad we could be together. And thank you for what you're doing, because we have so much stuff going on in California, so much really good stuff. And there's some issues we need to deal with. But the more that you can put your spotlight on it, the better. Thank you. If you haven't checked out CaliforniaInsider.com, we highly recommend you do that now. Because we're going to have a lot of news and videos there. And on top of what we have there right now, we're building a really big platform to cover what's happening in California. So you can be informed. We're going to have more shows, more videos from all aspects of life in California. Go to CaliforniaInsider.com and we'll see you there.