Friend of the Crabitat Hugh Hewitt is predicting a devastating loss on May 19th for a package of enormous tax increases in California.
California voters head to the polls next week with predictions of doom echoing in their ears if they decline to endorse the massive tax hikes prescribed for them by big Democratic majorities in the statehouse, Arnold and a handful of now ruined-politically Republican legislators.
“Shrill” doesn’t begin to describe the campaign designed to stampede the Golden State electorate. The latest ad has a weary, soot-covered fire-fighter urging a yes vote on the tax hike. The message is clear: Vote no and your homes will burn down.
Not even this sort of fear-mongering is moving the needle towards “yes” on the massive tax surge on next week’s ballot as poll after poll shows all the key measures put forward by the tax-and-spend-and tax-again crowd failing badly.
Arnold is doing his best to summon up the old magic but his appeal long ago hit Gray Davis-levels. Arnold was elected to slash taxes and spending, and somehow he confused that mandate with orders to throw in with the public employee unions. Too bad. He could have been a contender.
The GOP “leaders” who signed on to this roadmap to ruin have been dumped by their caucuses, and go down in California history as the biggest marks to have ever had a seat at the poker game known as the “Big Five” negotiations wherein the governor and the top Republicans and Democrats in the State Assembly and Senate hash out budget matters.
Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and every other would be Democratic governor are watching their chances in ’10 swirl down the drain as deep disgust with the tax-addicted grows.
Frankly, if Hugh is right – and the New York Times recently pointed to a poll that says his is – almost across the board, more on that in a moment – the pushback on taxes may have begun.
The national news is, of course, dominated by the crazed spending by the Democrats in power – and thoughtful people have been pointing out for a while now that all of this mad spending will have to be paid for. What is mostly ignored by the Obama-adoring media is that many states – controlled by Democrats – have also been going crazy raising taxes.
The one thing Hewitt doesn’t mention is the one item on the California referendum slate that looks to be a shoo-in for passing: Proposition 1F. That little gem would bar California legislative and state government officials from getting pay raises when the state is running a deficit.
It has about a 79% approval rating.
(Frankly, it should have gone further and banned ALL government employees from getting any pay increases unless the budget is balanced. But that is a whole different post.)
If the tax hikes are beaten down by California voters, that should send a clear message to the spend and tax politicians that they refused to understand on April 15th when the Tea Party protests erupted.
Keep an eye on it.
Side note: Hugh mentions that full-bore scare ads are being aired trying to stampede voters into supporting the increases. So who, exactly, is paying for those ads? Who has the money to run such a media blitz? Follow the money and I am quite sure we would see some very interesting things come out.
Well, speaking both as a Californian and as a state employee (the latter of which might make one think I support this bills), I plan to vote against them all. My co-workers would string me up if they knew, since the measures’ failure would likely entail massive budget cuts. Good, some shock therapy is what this state needs: the legislature and the governor have failed in their fiduciary duties to the people (who also bear some of the blame for voting for more and more debt over the years), and the public employees and service unions wield far too much power. The whole system is out of balance and needs a sharp correction back to sanity.
The root of the problem, however, isn’t progressive Democrats running the legislature or a weak governor: the real problem is the people in this state, including me, who stopped paying attention to state government. I bet most could not name their state senator or assemblyman. Maybe it’s a function of the centralization of power in Washington and a national media that focuses all its attention on the Fed, but people really don’t keep an eye on what goes on in their state capitals anymore — not until something like this mess happens. If state government is to be made functional again, here and elsewhere, that pattern has got to change.
California is freaking nuts. For proof just look at the Democratic talking points about the current state of the budget. (Its a power point presentation.)
http://www.ojaipost.com/files/Ojai%20Talk.ppt
We learn in this presentation that spending for K-12 education accounts for nearly 40% of General Revenue Spending in California. (This is nearly twice the national average.) Adding the amount spent on colleges and universities and the education spending accounts for 51%. That’s insane. (As a point of comparison, all of the spending in Housing, Business, and Transportation in the state PUT TOGETHER amounts to only 2% of the General Revenue spending.)
So what is the solution of the Demcorats??? To redress the wild imbalance of priorities maybe? NO!! For the Dems the real problem is the democratic mechanisms which require voters to consent to taxes. (Damn you Democracy!!!)
California Demcorats are hopelessly corrupted.
Arnold turns out to be a RINO. He is apparently much too heavily influenced by his wife and her far left Democratic Party family. The last two years has pretty much killed any furute political career he may have been hoping for – unless he pulls an Arlen Specter but I don’t think even that would save his career.
Florida’s in the same sinking boat. The Republican governor hasn’t a fiscally conservative bone in his legislative body. A $66 billion dollar budget that still needed raids on trust funds, and wheeling dealing to get a chunk of the federal stimulus package. The lament of the state workers is taking a paycut of 2% if making over $45,000 a year. The pity business is supposed to feel for the business of government is driving us under and out of business. Any clues of what we can do before election time? Waiting to vote for a change could be a buck too late.