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Do you think of your pet’s health as a luxury? Governor Schwarzenegger does
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Strays like Jenny need to be tested for disease before joining a shelter population Photo: Jackie Bass
Potentially just days from now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be moving to tax veterinary services for your pets.
According to the Governor’s website, his new budget proposal would mean “[e]ffective February 1, 2009, the sales and use tax rate will be applied to appliance and furniture repair, vehicle repair, golf, and veterinarian services. Effective March 1, 2009, the sales and use tax rate will be applied to amusement parks and sporting events.”
While many would agree that you could fairly classify golf, amusement parks, and even sporting events as, if not luxury items, at least optional ones, how can one possibly be so callous as to suggest that veterinary services belong in the same category as golf?
Frankly, Governor Schwarzenegger is incentivizing animal neglect.
This at a time when rising unemployment is already hitting Californians hard, forcing them to make tough choices about what they’ll have to give up. As any veterinarian will tell you, many pet owners already don’t get the kind of consistent, preventative maintenance healthcare for their animals that can often allow vets to detect and treat issues before they become chronic or life threatening.
Perhaps the Governor isn’t aware that even the retail costs of pet care are already skyrocketing. My vet recently raised the price of an office visit by twenty-five percent, as did the manufacturer of my cats’ food. Then again, maybe he is aware of it, and reasons that he’d like to get a piece of that expanding tax base. If so, that’s frankly unconscionable.
And what about private rescues and shelters? If you think your vet bills are high, you can’t imagine the costs incurred caring for animals who are frequently victims of long-term neglect before they find refuge at a private rescue. Private no-kill rescues, unlike city and county shelters, don’t simply euthanize sick, old or stereotypically “unadoptable” animals; they try to make them healthy. The costs for this can be staggering. Add to that the costs for spaying and neutering prior to adoption, which is non-negotiable for any reputable rescue.
Since we’re in a period of soaring foreclosures, where the rising numbers of abandoned and surrendered animals are well documented, I called the Governor’s office to ask if they planned to exempt private rescues and shelters from this new tax. I was told this was “not defined.” If this is so, Governor Schwarzenegger has apparently given little thought to the impact this tax could have on thousands of California’s animals.
This is not the first time that Schwarzenegger’s axe has swung blindly towards the most vulnerable members of our society. This summer he vetoed legislation that would have made it illegal to hold your dog on your lap while driving. Anyone with common sense can imagine the potentially fatal injuries that would result from even a medium speed collision if the airbag deployed with deadly force into the body of a small dog perched in the lap of a driver. But this being Los Angeles, you see it practically every day. Nevertheless, Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have outlawed this pet-endangering practice, simply because it landed on his desk at a time when he was vetoing everything, purely to communicate his pique with State lawmakers. He could have stood up for the safety and wellbeing of animals in California and he chose not to. Now he is poised to do so again.
For more info: Visit http://gov.ca.gov/fact-sheet/10965/ to view the Governor's fact sheet regarding this legislation. To speak to the Governor's L.A. office call 213-897-0322, Sacramento office, 916-445-2841. For info on pet abandonment and increasing vet costs see: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/21/pets.foreclosure/index.html and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27665004/
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