Supporting Data
Click Here for Full Size Pic of California CARA Graph

The Conservation and Reinvestment Act, HR701-S25 (CARA) will divert $3 billion per year in Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil & gas revenues from the federal treasury to an off-budget trust fund. This huge trust fund would be automatically available for spending on CARA projects without the checks and balances of annual Congressional appropriations. These OCS funds are currently used for general fund purposes such as shoring up Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt. Replacement of these funds will have to come from somewhere else: either by increasing taxes, reducing services, or increasing the national debt burden on future generations. OCS revenue diverted by CARA has a resulting cost to each Stateâs citizens as higher taxes or services lost. This loss is an offset to any claimed CARA benefit.

CARA also requires that states provide separate matching funds for many CARA pork distributions! To come up with this additional money, states are going to have to raise taxes or cancel and reduce other current services.

Additional impacts will result from loss of property tax and other revenue when private lands are transferred to governmental agencies. This affects the level of school funding, road maintenance and other governmental services provided by counties and cities.

Californians are told they get $324 million per year out of CARA. But not a word is said about the $345 million pocket-picking they are taking as their federal tax obligations go up (their make-up share of the $3 billion in OCS revenues that stop flowing into the federal treasury). In addition, their state and local taxes have to go up $113 million to pay the mandated CARA matching funds!

$21 million would be saved if the California legislature would just÷on its own÷raise state taxes by the CARA $324 million and spend it exactly according to Californiaâs own priorities and needs rather than those of federal bureaucrats!

The populous state of California loses $0.61 per person, per year from CARA. So who makes out like bandits from CARA? Alaska! Alaska gains an incredible $261 per person per year from CARA. And guess who is sponsoring the bill - big surprise, a congressman and senator from Alaska!

Senators Boxer and Feinstein would perform a great service for Californians by filibustering the CARA rip-off.

 

Return to CARA Reality by State

 

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American Land Rights Association
Tel: 360-687-3087 - FAX: 360-687-2973

 

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