Forget about Propositions to raise your taxes by you voting them on yourselves, the Democrat legislature now has (or soon will) a super majority:
The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento.
Mr. Brown can blame himself for this predicament, after he drove more young voters to the polls by threatening to cut $500 million from higher education, which would have brought on large tuition increases. Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up 28% of the electorate, up from 22% in 2008 and 15% in 1996.
Unions also ramped up their turnout machine to kill a ballot initiative that would have barred unions from automatically withholding money from worker paychecks for political spending. The high Democratic turnout in moderate and right-leaning districts helped the party pick up three seats in the senate and four in the assembly.
So now Californians will experience the joys of one-party, union-run progressive governance. Mr. Brown is urging lawmakers to demonstrate frugality and the “prudence of Joseph.” As he said the other day, “we’ve got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don’t go on any spending binges.” That’s what all Governors say. Trouble is, merely paying the state’s delinquent bills will require tens of billions in additional revenues if lawmakers don’t undertake fiscal reforms.
The only thing good about this development is leftism will be on full display for the rest of the nation to see – and they’d better pay attention, because not only can what’s about to happen to California happen to them, it will.
Meanwhile, conservatives in California can only hope the more conservative Governors somehow hold the line in their respective states to give us someplace to retreat to. No liberals allowed.
California TCOT 