Yes Virginia, it is a tax increase, and no Aaron, the principled opposition to any new tax is not a partisan position. The Governor cannot avoid his responsibility for this crisis by calling on Legislators to end their political careers to bail him out of a situation he created. Had he listened to them two years ago or last year, instead of engaging in the name calling he is engaging in again this year, he would not be in this mess. To say now that the disaster he created because he was too eager to cut a budget deal before is now the result of the Legislators that tried to help him avert this disaster is pure narcissism. Last year, Senate Republicans tried to stop this disaster. The Governor insulted them, impliedly allowed the Democrats to go after Jeff Denham, called them every thing he could think of, and today says they are being unreasonable because they didn’t want to have to vote for a tax increase this year? Just who does he think he is?
I have been out of the country for some time, so I haven’t followed the debate too close, but over the last several days, I have been satisfying my addiction to talk radio, and I have been hearing the commercials of the rent seekers, the government employee unions, who have been spending the money they steal from government employees to finance hits against various Republican Legislators across the state. Their attacks are shameless. They are also old. They made the same attacks when the general fund budget was $39 billion, $47 billion, $57 billion, $79 billion, $91 billion and $102 billion. Do you realize that it was only 3 years ago when the total general fund budget was $91 billion? Were teachers be fired then? Were state services substandard then? (well, yes they were, but not because they didn’t have enough money). Was the entire structure of government about to collapse then? In fact, the whole state government could be rolled back to that point, a 15% cut, and still produce as much or more than we are getting out the state. This whining over a $2 or $3 billion reduction in spending belies the greed and avarice of the government employee unions. Too much is never enough for them. The taxes will never go away, the spending will never be enough, there will never be enough money or enough people to "do a good job." And those who oppose them will always be anti-poor or anti-children or anti-state employee or anti-mom or anti-apple pie.
This whole problem was created by a gutless Governor and a spendthrift majority in the Legislature, with a few allies on the Republican side who were trying to reason with the Governor then to avert the crisis now. It was a failed strategy on their part. They should have shut the government down last year, and they wouldn’t have to be debating about who is going to end their political career this year. They will never satisfy the government union pigs. They can never give them enough slop, and those pigs are fat enough now. They should be sent to the butcher shop, and their squealing should be ignored.