Think Long Committee has the bucks to get measure on ballot, passed
(NEWSER) - A group of California billionaires is joining political insiders to put a $10 billion tax hike measure on the state ballot. Members of the Think Long Committee include billionaire Google chairman Eric Schmidt and philanthropist Eli Broad, as well as former governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Condoleezza Rice. The group's plan is to boost tax revenue for education and to pay down the state's debt by relying on an "ideological hybrid" of ideas from both the right and the left, spokesman Nathan Gardels tells the San Francisco Chronicle . The proposal would lower California's personal income tax and sales tax rates, but impose a 5% tax on currently untaxed services such as legal work and accounting. Under the proposal, couples earning up to $45,000 would pay no state income tax; those earning up to $95,000 would pay 2%; and those earning more would pay 7.5%, with a 1% surcharge for Californians earning more than $1 million. More»
