By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com

Without taxes, we would have no governmental services at all.  No police.  No fire department.  No bronze plaques commemorating the Mayor's announcement that he wants 1 million trees planted.  Okay, bad, but true, example.

Since we must pay for the services we want, what's wrong with increasing the taxes we pay on land-line phones, cell phones, DSL lines, VoIP, T-1 lines and every other form of electronic communication?

What's wrong is that our taxes here in the City of L.A. are already much higher than in other cities, our money is being squandered, and our high taxes are scaring away jobs.  I've already written quite a bit about the waste at City Hall.  By now you know the City Controller has said City Hall should not even think about asking for a tax hike until they get their "house in order."  So today let's focus instead on how taxes and income in our city compare to other cities:

Did you know that Beverly Hills, Thousand Oaks and San Diego have no phone tax?  The same goes for Atlanta, Boston, and Philadelphia.  As for cities that do impose phone taxes, New York’s tax is just 2.4%; Long Beach and Las Vegas charge 5%; and Burbank and Portland charge 7%.  So why must we pay 9%?

Unlike our neighboring cities in the county of L.A., moreover, our city imposes a business income tax that puts a $477 million burden on the city’s employers -- a burden in addition to federal and state income tax, sales tax, property tax and all the other taxes.  Result?  People who have a choice open businesses and hire employees in cities other than ours, so we lose out on good jobs.  When is the last time you heard of anyone opening a new factory here, or moving their corporate headquarters here?

The median income of people who live in the city of L.A. is lower than the median income of people who live in the county:  $44,445 vs. $51,315 in 2006.  And the gap has been growing bigger during the past few years:  a 15.5% gap in 2006, up from 13% in 2004.  You can't build a successful economy based on people selling oranges from traffic medians.

And get this:  according to the Mayor’s own budget, the median “effective buying income” of our city’s residents, i.e., their after-tax income, has actually dropped from $37,321 in 2001, to $34,480 in 2005.  The median after-tax income figure state-wide, by the way, was $43,915 -- 27% higher than in our city!

Prop S would make our city an even less desirable place for businesses to hire people.  We can’t afford that.  We need to attract good jobs, not scare them away.  We need to make L.A. a great place to do business, because unless and until we do, all the good jobs will move elsewhere.

So vote "no" on Prop S on February 5, 2008, and then focus on helping elect a better Mayor -- yours truly, Walter Moore -- in March of 2009.  It's not too late to save America's second-biggest city.