Last night, Speaker Fabian “Louis Vuitton” Nunez convened a rare Wednesday session of the Assembly to debate their plan to raise taxes on oil production in California, which would have raised gas prices at a time when Californians are paying record prices. Democrats all but admitted that this was not a serious exercise, but just a public relations stunt to try to position themselves as “white knights” riding into to save the day from “evil Republican budget cutters.”
Democrat after Democrat rose to blame oil companies for “not paying their fair share” to the state as the reason why teachers were receiving layoff notices this month. Others bemoaned the fact that Californians received modest tax relief in recent years, blaming the repeal of the Gray Davis’ illegal car tax increase for the state’s current budget woes. They even said with a straight face that Californians have endured “heartless” budget cuts over the past four years and said they would refuse to support a budget this year that takes responsible steps to reduce spending. Perhaps we should remind them that revenue in California increased 40 percent over the past four years, but spending increased 44 percent. That hardly sounds like draconian budget cutting to me.
At least Speaker Nunez had the chutzpah to stand up and admit the true feelings of every Democrat in Sacramento. During his speech, he actually said, “If you give me an opportunity to tax oil companies, I’m gonna tax them whether we need the money for education or not.” Democrats clearly have never met a tax increase they never liked, and their current tax increase drive is further proof of that. As Republicans point out today with their “Top 10” List of the Worst Democrat Tax Increases, Democrats have proposed more than $25 billion in higher taxes on Californians this year alone.
If Democrats want to try to raise taxes on working families every week, I think that’s only great news for Republicans. With gas prices going up 46 cents per gallon over the last month and Californians paying the highest gas taxes in the nation – nearly 64 cents per gallon – Democrats have given Republicans a tremendous gift with their drive to make gas prices in California even higher. It shows just how out-to-lunch and how addicted to higher spending they really are. It’s ironic that the same poor Californians they claim to be so concerned about would be the ones hurt most by their plan.
I think this debate and the ones that will surely follow in the coming weeks (Speaker Nunez has promised to go after others who aren’t paying their fair share with tax increases) really set up this year’s budget debate well for Republicans. I welcome the contrast in the coming months between the party of fiscal responsibility, living within our means and lower taxes, and the party that created a $16 billion budget deficit and wants to punish Californians with higher gas taxes, higher income taxes, higher property taxes, higher taxes on senior citizens, higher taxes on families with children, and higher taxes on online purchases and other higher taxes so they can spend even more.
Kudos to Assembly Republicans for standing up for drivers and rejecting this sham of a plan!