The Los Angeles Times today reports that Senators Tom Berryhill and Anthony Cannella, and Assemblymembers Katcho Achjedian, Bill Berryhill and Paul Cook hosted a high priced fundraising campaign for their re-election, the theme of which was “Heads On A Stick” — making fun of the fact that their refusal to commit to opposing new increases in the state’s already income, sales and car taxes has drawn the ire of Southern California radio talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Champiou (“John and Ken”).

Don’t buy the “spin” put forward by advocates of government spending and the main stream media that the proposal of Governor Brown to raise taxes is actual something else called an “extension of taxes” — that is State Capitol double speak.  The income tax increase and reduction in the child tax credit that were part of the terrible 2009 budget deal have already expired (they were on the 2009 and 2010 tax years), and the sales and car taxes end on June 30th.  What is being discussed are new taxes to be imposed starting July 1st.

Those five legislators should really step back and figure out whether they are really comfortable with the size and scope of California state government today, as they mock the high-profile criticisms of John and Ken, who rightly point out that four of the five legislators were elected signing no-tax pledges and the fifth, Senator Cannella, certainly had anti-tax themes to his campaign.

The reality is that Californians are currently struggling through a terrible recession, and contributing to their misery is that they are among the most overtaxed people in the country.   The reality is that the end to these taxes in just two and a half months will bring welcome relief at a time when many families are making very tough choices — and each either has someone or knows someone (or many someones) who are out of work.

One can’t but help but wonder at the insensitivity and hubris of Republican politicians who would seek to enrich their political bank accounts and make fun of the fact that they are apparently quite willing to “trade away” the ending of these terrible taxes for policy considerations that do nothing to relieve the immediate burden of taxpayers.

Let me be clear that this current crop of Democrat legislators (and many who preceded them) are largely responsible for pushing and pushing an agenda of government expansion and increased spending that has taken us to the brink.   It of course is only natural, given their liberal ideology, that they will continue to do so (despite the misery of taxpayers, they continue to introduce more and bigger taxes as a matter of routine).

Which brings us to today’s meeting of the Compensation Commission that reviews the salary, benefits and perks of state legislators.  There is talk that they will be taking a close look at one of the big perks of being a State Senator or Assemblymember, the fact that that taxpayers provide each with two cars — legislators (who want them) are leased a car for their district, and every legislator has available to them their own car parked under the Capitol for use while in Sacramento.  To be honest, I have heard a couple of decent arguments for legislators retaining this perk — one being that on paper it may pencil out to be more cost effective to lease cars that to reimburse mileage to legislators who use their own cars, the other being that taking the creates a disincentive for legislators with large districts to get out to the outlying areas.

All of that having been said, as long as my state legislature is filled with Democrats (and apparently a handful of Republicans) who think that government knows how to run my life better than I do — and who have fully embraced the idea that the California way of life should include massive wealth redistribution that allows politicians to take money by the billions from some people to then hand out, as they see fit, to other people — I say let them walk.  I support taking away the car “perk” as a punitive measure towards a legislature that is completely out of touch with California taxpayers and that seems more than willing to raise taxes even higher.

I was told by a reader that California is the only state where taxpayers provide cars for their legislators.  It seems to me that if legislators of 49 other states can get by without “company cars” — well than ours can, too.

In the meantime, the five legislators mentioned at the top of this column should focus less on figuring out how to fatten their campaign bank accounts by dancing with the devil, and instead think about the meaningful reforms and assault on the cause of progressivism that takes place with the expiration of the remaining taxes at the end of June.

— Jon Fleischman, Publisher

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.