Wow, I thought California had a pretty high volume of "tourist" activity? And considering the last couple years and all the out of state guests visting over Prop 8, I can't imagine why there isn't enough money? Don't "tourists" stay in hotels, buy food or frequent restaurants, buy miscellaneous stuff? I'd say a pretty bad job of budgeting is to blame, not the amount of taxes received.

All in all when I read:
I find that unacceptable. Low-income seniors and college students may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but they connected none-the-less. Low-income seniors are in one the highest risk categories and should never be omitted from receiving assistance. College students may depend on some of those funds to assist in living expenses. If they drop out of school because they can't get by for a couple months they become a statistical risk and my not return. We need to become an educated society, our futures will depend on the knowledge and skills of the college educated. We are leaving an incomperable debt for the future, we better dam n well be supporting every effort of every student who strives to achieve a higher education.

I find this information decieving. When calculating this information, we are also calculating all the people that are recieving money from the government, which is essentially a negative tax, are we not?

I know for a fact, that my parents, who are lower/middle class, pay almost 30% just in income tax (combined state and federal). Take into consideration, sales tax, social security tax, inflation tax, property tax, vehicle registrations, road tolls, gasoline tax, etc. they are paying more like 60% of their income in taxes alone. And Maine, according to government sites, is only ranked 35 out of 50, in the highest taxes i think...

Anyhow, anyone that says we only pay $1,000 to $3,000 a year in taxes really needs to think about how wrong this information is...