No Matter What the Crisis Is

You may recall, back in the dimly recalled days of yesteryear - May 2009, to be exact - when Californians voted down 5 propositions designed to balance the state budget by raising taxes. Ever since that long-ago vote, the state has been in "crisis" with the governator and state reps trying, once again to reach a compromise that would allow the state to avoid default. State Democrats, who dominate the Legislature and who are admittedly the default political party for a majority of voters have come up with a brilliant idea: raise taxes and don't cut spending! Um, didn't we already reject this? Califiornia Lawmakers Ready To Battle Over Taxes

Democratic lawmakers proposed raising taxes on tobacco and oil companies and refused to cut state worker pay as a key budget committee finished its plan Tuesday to solve the state's $24.3 billion deficit.

The new taxes would include:

-- A 9.9 percent tax on companies that extract oil from California, something the governor proposed last December, though he has now taken a hard line against any taxes.

-- An increase from 87 cents to $2.37 on a pack of cigarettes. Other tobacco products would also see an increase.

-- Reversing two corporate tax breaks included in the deal last September that ended the stalemate over the 2008-09 budget.

The taxes are in addition to a $15 increase in the vehicle license fee that lawmakers proposed Monday to keep open 219 state parks that would close under the governor's plan, which the committee revised.

Unreal. The state unemployment rate is in double digits. There are record foreclosures throughout the state (esp. in the south). CA citizens are downsizing their lives to cope with their new economic realities. Yet, the dominant party in the state government cannot bring itself to cut state spending. Strike that. They are always willing to cut spending for public services, first responders, and prisons. But, God forbid state employees experience a cut in their pay (I am assuming a well-deserved downsizing in state employment rolls is simply not worthy of discussion).

CA will lurch from crisis to crisis until the tax-and-spenders are driven from office. But, it's hard to believe that would happen anytime soon. The sad truth is the state's default position is left-liberal. This is partly due to a sympathetic media environment that always trumpets the "Intransigent GOP = Cuts for Kindergartners" story-line. But it is mostly due to the voters themselves, who never fail to support feel-good measures, regardless of their cost, and allow themselves to be rolled by fear stories about empty firehouses, when the real money is going to gold-plated pensions and salaries for state employees.

Until this dynamic is ended. it won't matter what the crisis is: the solution will always be the same.