We’re San Diego's Non-profit, Non-partisan, Local Public Policy Think Tank & Government Watchdog Group

Our Mission

To support the public, civic leaders and policymakers with independent research on economic and quality-of-life issues impacting taxpayers and ratepayers countywide.

Our Policy Platform

Who We Are, What We Believe, and What We Want to See for San Diego

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association (Taxpayers) is a nonpartisan association of individuals, businesses, and organizations who promote effective and efficient government on behalf of all San Diego County taxpayers. Taxpayers engages civic leadership as well as the public to develop and promote well researched policy solutions.

Taxpayers envisions a future where San Diego citizens receive a better return on investment in public assets and services.

Taxpayers works to reduce the need for tax revenue or taxpayer debt by advocating for policies that create efficiencies in public services, which affect San Diegans’ quality of life and against policies that disengage, disaffect, and disenfranchise the taxpayer.  

General Principles

• We believe the free market through the private sector generally provides the private goods and services San Diegans need.

  • When advocates propose government intervention as a response to market failures, it is our association’s job to evaluate whether that intervention is appropriate.

• We believe public goods and services should be provided as efficiently and effectively as possible from organizations in both the public and private sector through practices supported by data and academic research.

  • In pursuit of efficiency, for profit, nonprofit, and governmental enterprises should establish and track measureable goals when providing public goods or services.

  • Even if effective, an organization is more efficient if it can achieve those goals with less financial resources.

Our History

The San Diego Taxpayers Association was founded on September 18, 1945, just four days after the abrupt end of WWII. As the world entered the atomic era, San Diego's wartime economy evaporated. Factory production of warplanes halted and thousands were out of work. Meanwhile, political and civic leaders grappled with what San Diego should become in this brave new world.

The Association was founded by the "Broadway Barons” aircraft pioneer Claude T. Ryan; attorneys Walter Ames and J.D. Forward; contractors Roscoe “Pappy” Hazard and Walter Trepte; department store owner Guilford Whitney and others who felt that San Diego needed an independent civic organization to monitor government spending and efficiency as San Diego planned its future in the post-war world.

In early 1946 the San Diego Taxpayers Association - SDTA (later SDCTA, when “County” was added to its name in the 1980’s) - hired its first Executive Director, Jack Borchers. Jack, a tax attorney by training, initiated the detailed analysis and independent approach to issues that is still the signature of today’s Taxpayers Association.