In his book, Parliament of Whores, PJ O’Rourke noted that taxes are extracted from people by force, that is, the threat of imprisonment if you don’t pay. Therefore, he says, a tax should be thought along the lines that “you are putting a gun to your grandma’s head” to get the money. Only those things that you can justify paying for by taking the money from grandma by force should be funded by government. If you cannot say in good conscience, grandma should pay for free stuff for illegal aliens (as an example), then government should not fund it. The money for it was extracted from everyone by force.
The Legislature is set to pass a budget today. They are set to approve all the money they stole from grandma by force. It’s a budget that shows their contempt for the working people of California and their subservience to the government employee unions that control the levers of power in California. The seeds of the destruction that will be caused by this spending spree have been planted, and, while some have mentioned it, no one emphasizes how irresponsible the budget really is.
Let’s start with the headlines that the propagandists for the left in California (those that we call the “mainstream media”) will emphasize, that is, the tax rebate of between $200 and $1000, depending on your income and number of dependents, that is in the budget. The left in the Legislature will complain that the rebate is too much, that there are other priorities that are important to Californians, but hey, budgets are compromises, so they agreed to this “exorbitant” amount to be given to Californians in the “spirit of compromise.”
Give me a break. There is a $97 billion surplus. The tax rebate equals twenty percent of that budget. That is like the thief pointing the gun at your head, taking $100, then giving you back $20 and saying you should be grateful he didn’t take all $100. It’s your money, not theirs. The question is: Do you know better how to spend that $80, or do they? I would bet on you every day. You work hard for your money, you need it to feed, house, and raise your children. The California Legislature wants it to enhance their control on the government, by giving it to employee unions who then donate a big chunk of that money back to them for their elections.
Look, I get it. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Democrats gotta spend your money. Just Look at their spending priorities.
First, the first union contract of the year gave one union an a $5000, up to $50,000 bonus. That is in addition to the $1000 tax rebate that those employees will get as well. They get 600% to 6000% more than you, and the justification is that they want these government employees to stay working for the state for the next year. That, of course, is what their salary is for.
Second, school districts, who complain about “declining enrollment,” are receiving an increase of 13%. That is after a record increase from last year. If you did as badly in your job as our school districts do educating our students, you would get fired from your job. They get a raise. They even get to use fake numbers for their average daily attendance payments to increase their payments from the state. The reason the schools are losing students is because they are doing a bad job. The answer is not giving them more money to give to the teachers’ unions in the local school district.
They then spend an extra $200 million on abortions, and claim that is the real “pro-life” position. I am sure that the 500,000 babies that will die under this provision will agree that killing them is pro-life.
The budget then pays for health care for illegal aliens, and increases other forms of relief to those who live in California in violation of federal immigration laws. Thanks grandma, for “giving” the state the money to fund that.
Of course, while there is more for illegals and government unions, there is no gas tax relief at all. California has the highest gas prices, yet, on Friday, the gas tax will increase. Again, thanks grandma. Now when you go shopping for food on your fixed income, you will have to pay more for gas to get to the grocery store, but don’t worry, that extra money will go to pay illegals for their free food and free health care.
There are billions of other wasted dollars on useless program and bureaucracies that would require thousands of pages to document, so I won’t do it here. But, one more time, I will say it. Pay special attention to the budget projections of the Department of Finance and Legislative Analyst’s Office in November, right after the election. I may be wrong, but I believe we are on the verge of a major collapse in revenue and it is being hidden until after the election. We’ll see…