Unions, Hospitals, Casinos fund campaign to increase taxes

A $7 Billion tax increase
$1,200,000 raised by Democrats in two weeks from special interest groups to raise taxes


Socialist Democrat Governor Jerry Brown's campaign to raise taxes has raised more than $1.2 million in two weeks, according to the campaign's first financial filing with the California secretary of state's office.

Special interest groups looking to suck on the public teat or wanting favors from government are lining up to give Democrats money to raise taxes.

The sum was raised from just nine donations, the largest of which, $500,000, came from an arm of the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. The state building trades union donated $250,000 through its political action committee, Members' Voice of the State Building Trades reports the Sacramento Bee.

The contributions are the first large donations following Brown's announcement this month of a ballot measure to temporarily raise the state sales tax and higher income taxes on California's highest-earners, raising about $7 billion annually for five years.

"Our interest is that there be a budget that, you know, is halfway balanced," Duane Dauner, president of the California Hospital Association, said this morning. "This is an overall effort to be supportive of balancing revenues and expenses so we can, in fact, get the state back on track."

Blue Shield of California donated $100,000 to the effort, and California gambling tribes combined to give more than $300,000

(Sacramento Bee)