EDITORIAL: Off into the sunset?

In 2012, Californians approved a ballot question that hiked state income taxes for those with salaries above $250,000. It was offered as a temporary tax, set to expire in 2019.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown said the levy was necessary to close a multibillion-dollar state deficit and avoid major cuts to public schools in the wake of the recession.

Four years later, proponents now argue that allowing the tax to expire as promised will amount to a massive “tax cut” for the wealthy.

In other words, they lied back in 2012.

This, in a nutshell, is why virtually every “temporary tax” eventually becomes permanent. Trying to wean the public sector and the trough feeders from a “temporary” revenue source is like forcing a junkie to cut back on his daily heroin allotment.

The Associated Press reports that a group of unions (surprise!), hospitals and doctors will turn in more than enough signatures to qualify a ballot initiative asking Californians to extend for another 12 years those “temporary” tax hikes on high earners. Doing so, supporters argue, would raise billions for education and health care.

Never mind the terms of the 2012 ballot question.

Critics vowed to wage a campaign to persuade voters that the tax extension would be a drag on the economy, which is no doubt true. “This lays bare the false promises of this being a temporary tax increase,” Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told the wire service.

Despite selling the tax increases to voters as a short-term fix, proponents now say that allowing tax rates to revert to previous levels — a feature of the original proposition that likely convinced a significant number of Californians to support the measure — would be an unacceptable boon to the rich.

An SEIU representative said the initiative asks only that the wealthiest 2 percent “continue paying a little bit more for a little while longer.” When a seven-year tax becomes a 19-year tax, that’s not “a little while longer.” It’s not going away. Ever.

Nevadans know this fact well. In recent legislative sessions, lawmakers extended a host of levies that were supposed to “sunset.” In the 2015 session, legislators actually made those levies permanent as part of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s tax package.

There’s no such thing as a temporary tax. Politicians and the special-interest mouthpieces who promise otherwise deceive the people who pay the bills. Vote accordingly.