Californians are getting used to the idea of “furlough Fridays”: due to the state’s fiscal self-destruction, state employees are being told to stay home two or three times a month. The upside is that the freeways are a lot easier to drive on here in Sacramento.
But the downside—and something I don’t hear anyone mentioning—is that these furloughs are tax increases. And I suspect they’re a particularly regressive form of tax increase, as well.
John Q. Taxpayer used to pay X amount in taxes, and get in exchange for that a Department of Motor Vehicles that’s open on Fridays. But now he’s still paying X, and in exchange he gets only four days a week when he can go to the DMV. He doesn’t get a refund of that one day’s worth of taxes. That money’s still taken out of his pocket—and going somewhere. For him to get less of what he paid for, for the same amount of money, is every bit as much a tax increase as if the government demanded more money from him.
When he has to stand in longer lines the rest of the week, that tax increase is transformed into a real, obvious cost for him. When he can’t get hold of a state employee to get business done like he has to, that’s a tax increase. It’s as much a tax increase as inflation is—it transfers more wealth from one party to another—only through a mathematical trick instead of outright confiscation.
I suspect that this burden falls hardest on the lower classes, as they probably spend more time depending on the workaday tasks of government offices than the upper classes do. And it’s probably harder for them to take time off from work to get things done on days when government offices are open. This decreased efficiency probably matters less to those who can afford to go elsewhere or can afford to wait an extra day to get things done.
Comments policy