The big news: It looks like voters have handed two-thirds legislative majorities to the Democrats. The state Senate is a sure thing, and final counting will likely yield supermajority control of the Assembly to the Democrats, thanks, in part, to North Orange County voters’ ousting of Assemblyman Chris Norby.
Currently, the only thing standing between California residents and an endless series of bumps in sales taxes, income taxes, gasoline taxes and business taxes has been the constitutional requirement that raising taxes requires a two-thirds vote.
Republicans in California don’t stand for much, but they have mostly stood together in opposition to tax increases. Likewise, Democrats – including the handful of “moderates” – have been unified in their promotion of higher taxes as the answer to California’s problems. Now the Democrats will have their way, early and often.
“It’s time to start anew and to live within our means but at the same time invest in the cornerstone of our future and of our economy, and that’s education,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told CBS News. “I certainly don’t mean to suggest to my colleagues that the first thing we do is go out and raise more taxes,” he said.
Maybe not the first thing, but certainly the second and third things, if Steinberg runs the Senate the way he has up until now. Gov. Jerry Brown and other high-ranking Democrats assured the public that there will be no tax frenzy. As a headline put it, they “vow restraint,” but don’t believe them. Look at the bills the Legislature passed even when tax increases were not assured.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
