At the October 3 debate (at 00:56:03), Assemblyman Kevin McCarty said one of his favorite things about his Sacramento mayoral race opponent, Dr. Flojaune (“Flo”) Cofer, was that she was “unafraid to speak truth to power.” It is not clear the same can be said for McCarty. Yet that is just what we will need from our next mayor if we want to keep the lights on and protect the little guy in the process.
With large and growing city budget deficits projected for years to come, accompanied by potentially dramatic fee hikes, service cuts and layoffs, we can trust Dr. Cofer will seize one of the last remaining budget-saving options city staff can point to by having an honest conversation with big business and finally reforming our remarkably regressive business operations tax (BOT) system, not updated since 1991.
Here is why.
First and foremost, Dr. Cofer has told us she would do just that, while McCarty has equivocated.
That is, as Dr. Cofer explained at the September 22 debate, contrasting the rushed and exclusionary process that led up to the recent, failed, BOT-related primary ballot measure, Measure C, she is “supportive of doing an actual engagement process where we sit down with members of our business community, small and large, to talk about what works, what the impact is going to be . . . in a way where the process doesn’t prevent us from doing something that is necessary.”
Sacramento Mayoral Candidate Forum September 22, 2024
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Second, Dr. Cofer has been the clearest and most accurate of the two regarding what is, in fact, “necessary.”
As background, what is necessary is a progressive BOT system, in which the smallest businesses pay the lowest effective tax rates and the biggest businesses pay the highest. Currently, Sacramento’s BOT system is the opposite, i.e., regressive—with in some cases unprecedentedly high flat taxes on even the lowest-income businesses and a tax cap that limits even giant, multinational corporations like Walmart to paying at most $5,000 per year, even while most of the city’s self-identified peer jurisdictions have no tax cap at all.
Dr. Cofer has made numerous statements suggesting she understands what is necessary, noting at the September 22 debate in the context of discussing Measure C’s failures, that flat taxes like those Measure C would have increased equate to the little guy “getting hammered” and that Sacramento’s $5,000 maximum tax is a “drop in the bucket” for big businesses.
Incidentally, unlike with McCarty, comments Dr. Cofer has occasionally made about not raising taxes were clearly intended to rule out increased taxes on the general public, not to rule out asking big businesses to pay their fair share through BOT reform—for example, her comment during the October 18 debate when considered in the context of what she said moments later at that same debate and previously at the September 22 about her commitment to implementing the Management Partners consultant recommendations, which include increasing revenue through BOT reform.
Lastly, unlike McCarty, Dr. Cofer long ago disavowed support from powerful corporate interests that could bias her judgment, stating on her website, “I’m not accepting corporate money because I’ve seen too many politicians serve their corporate donors and abandon ordinary hard-working people.”
By contrast to all of this, McCarty has given multiple signals that he may not be up to this vital task.
First and most importantly, he has actively suggested that we cannot ask big businesses to pay their fair share.
Although at first, he sounded somewhat open to the idea at the September 22 debate, that started to change as he continued to speak, e.g., here and here—and by the time of the next debate, on October 3 (at 00:22:11) and again at the most recent debate, on October 18, he had circled back fully to what he had said at the first debate, incorrectly implying that the defeat of the BOT-related primary ballot measure, Measure C, meant there would be no point in trying because voters would reject the idea, just like they had rejected the measure.
Yet, all indications are that voters rejected Measure C not because it would have asked more of big businesses by increasing the tax cap, but because it would have doubled down on regressively taxing the smallest businesses, especially self-employed licensed professionals, and because it was drafted without enough input and violated public notice requirements, as I explained in a previous blog post.
Most of this McCarty himself acknowledged at the September 22 debate. So why did he then go back to suggesting otherwise?
We do not know—but we do know that he has not committed to rejecting corporate funding and has been endorsed by the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s PAC (Metro-PAC). The Metro Chamber’s board reads like a “who’s who” of Sacramento’s highest grossing, privately-held big businesses.
In any event, for all of these reasons and more, my bet is on Dr. Flo Cofer. She has clearly demonstrated that it is she who could best handle this delicate, existential matter with just the kind of bold, determined, clear-eyed, trustworthy and effective leadership required.
Post updated on October 22, 2024 primarily to include information related to the October 18, 2024 debate.
