Leviathan’s California minions are likely to get a devastating punch to the gut in today’s voting on a controversial slate of six initiative proposals, including Prop 1A that implements the tax hike package Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders from both parties adopted in April partially to close the state’s $44 billion deficit.
Going into today’s voting, polls indicate defeat is likely for all six initiatives. Ballotpedia.org has the running summary of the relevant surveys here. The most recent survey of SurveyUSA, for example, found 38 percent of respondents support Prop 1A, while 51 percent oppose it, with 11 percent undecided.
Thus, even if the undecideds break overwhelmingly for Prop 1A, it is hard to see how Schwarzenegger and the rest of the California political establishment will be able to avoid an extremely painful political showdown in occasioned by the defeat.
Here’s how Ballotpedia.org describes the initiatives:
“If Proposition 1A is passed, $10 billion in “temporary” sales, use, income and vehicle taxes imposed as part of the 2009-2010 budget agreement would each be extended for one or two years, resulting in a further tax increase of some $16 billion. [2],[3]
“Although the measure is often characterized as a limitation on state spending, it does not cap the amount of revenues that could be collected by the state or the amount of spending that could occur. Unlike a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” type initiative, the measure does not restrict the ability of the legislature and the governor to approve tax increases. It would allow increased spending for infrastructure projects, and for accumulating money to pay health care benefits that the state has said over the years it would pay to retired government workers.”
Essentially, approval of the propositions would enable Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders to put off yet again the day of reckoning when they will finally have to face a stark choice – implementing what would effectively be a form of bankruptcy or implementing massive spending cuts aimed primarily at cutting the state government’s overwhelming personnel costs. Doing the latter, of course, will put them on a collision course with the very special interests who provide the bulk of their campaign funding, troops and turnout.
And who are those special interests? For two decades, California government has essentially been under the thumb of a liberal coalition led by teacher and public employee unions, environmental and other “progressive” political activists, and left-wing Democrats in the legislature and governor’s mansion.
For an advanced peek at what the whole state of California is likely headed for, check out the unhappy experience of the City of Vallejo, which filed for bankruptcy last year after reaching a point it could no longer afford the personnel costs imposed by its public employee unions.
The result is a state that in many ways has become a model of European Democratic Socialist economic and social policy. State govenment employment, regulation and spending have skyrocketed in the past decade, even as millions of legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico and central America arrived to put incredible pressure on public schools, police and healthcare systems for expanded services.
As state leaders increased taxes and the dead hand of regulation on business, the productive sector of the California economy began pulling up stakes and moving to Arizona, Nevada and elsewhere. With the businesses go the jobs and tax revenues, which results in an endless cycle of higher taxes and declining quality of life for many families who have lived for generations in California and who are the heart of the state’s economy.
The 2003 recall rebellion that ousted Gov. Gray Davis and installed Schwarzenegger should have been the wakeup call for political leaders in both parties, but they persisted in their old ways, successfully resisting Arnold’s mlld reform initiatives in 2005, then steadily coopted the Terminator in the ensuing years. By the time the current crisis arrived, the governor was very much on the side of government, not the people.
If the pre-balloting polls are accurate, today looks to be the day when what is left of the California that genuinely deserved to be called the Golden State delivers another stark message to the political establishment. But this time the establishment won’t get a chance to delay, divert and divide the forces of reform before the crunch comes.
As Prop 1A opponents have been continually pointing out in recent weeks, the current state of political and economic affairs in California bears quite a resemblance to the days of Proposition 13, which sparked a nationwide tax revolt and hepled put Ronald Reagan in the White House.
