Nobody — no sane body — really wans to defund the police. Yet critics say that is just what would happen if a proposed ballot measure to repeal the city of Los Angeles’s gross receipts tax gets enough signatures to go before voters and is approved by them.
As City Hall reporter David Zahniser writes in the Los Angeles Times, the critics of the effort to eliminate the tax say that it would punch “an $800-million hole in the city budget,” much of which certainly goes to policing L.A. and keeping it safe.
The problem with the punching-a-hole argument is that this particular tax is so onerous it’s a serious threat to the financial viability of local businesses large and small. Without a vigorous commercial sector in the nation’s second-largest city, there would be a whole lot less to police in the first place.
This tax is the worst kind of tax, levied on the gross receipts of businesses even before they have a chance to make a profit — or even take a loss. The tax-fighting effort by leaders of the business community is no mere anti-all-taxes crusade — liberal former Mayor Eric Garcetti more than a decade ago tried to eliminate it, having to compromise on a slight cutback in it instead.
“This initiative is the result of the business community uniting to fight the anti-job climate at City Hall,” said Nella McOsker, president and chief executive of the Central City Assn., a downtown business group, the Times reports. McOsker is the daughter of Councilman Tim McOsker, who represents the San Pedro area and is a member of the city’s Budget & Finance Committee.
Backers of the Los Angeles Cost of Living Relief Initiative note that the tax hits entertainment companies, child-care providers, law firms, accountants, healthcare businesses, nightclubs and delivery companies — and that many small businesses, especially restaurants, are closing down every day in the city because of increased costs of labor and goods. They need some relief if the city of Los Angeles is to continue to succeed.
Of course City Hall would have to find a way to fix the hole in its budget if tax relief is granted. But the City Council just managed to close a $1 billion shortfall. Use the smarts its members were elected for to do it again.