Taxes, in California

"As California goes, so goes the nation."

That is a venerable statement that you hear sometimes, made in politics. But has California always been the state mentioned? I can't remember. I do recollect that the reference almost always has to do with elections. But nowadays it seems to be true in many other areas, among which is one of the major fronts in the currently raging New American Civil War -- taxes.

Because the California government no longer has enough money coming in to allow it to cover its commitments for the common good, and because there are no longer enough dodges left to cover the shortfall, namely massive loans, some of them taken out by the governor himself, recently the Conan the Barbarian guy proposed massive cuts in spending all across the board.

--What a chore it was to type the last nine words of that previous paragraph, in my attempt to use some authentic economic jargon, which always looks so distasteful, sounds ugly, and often is so disheartening and toxic in its meanings. But don't mind me. I am very much a child of the Great Depression, having been born at the precise moment when things really started getting serious, and that is as good a thing as any to blame for my lifelong avoidance of the subject of economics, in all its manifestations.

Nevertheless, to my impaired eye the obvious solution to the California government's woes is to ask the citizens to increase their contributions to the common good, that is, to cough up more in taxes. But vital reproductive organs of Mr. A. Schwartzenegger and by extension the state itself are caught in the wringer of ideology, and for Mr. A. S. that's not an option. This is because, aside from the concealed agenda of preventing any further Civil Rights advances while whenever possible rolling back the ones that have already been made, the other chief tine in the blood-dripping Republican pitchfork has for a long time been cutting taxes. It is always the first and the last words that you hear rolling from their mouths when they are soliciting votes. And that pitch usually works, to the point where I wonder how there can be any taxes left to cut, it's been done so often lately, especially since the GW Bush takeover.

I also wonder what the wealthier people do with all the taxes that they avoid paying. They don't otherwise finance any of the myriad beneficial activities that they depend on governments to do. That has to mean that they just salt it away, to line their coffins on those terminal days that, try as they might, even their vast stashes of cash can't help them to avoid. Or they buy real necessities, like new faces and bodies, swimming pools, boats, giant TV's, and flights to distant, supposedly exotic places, from which they return, unfortunately, and with not one iota of enlightment newly installed in their heads.

Taxes are supposed to make a civilization possible, but there are legions that have never heard that, or, if they have, they don't buy it, or if they do believe, they still cast that idea aside, so prevailing is the urge to hold tight to every penny in sight, and let civilization be fed to dogs -- as if none of these "good" citizens live in that same civilized world.

So, instead of asking for an increase in taxes, even a modest one, A. Schwartzenegger proposes to make cuts in a plethora of areas that will make his state less civilized.

One feature of his proposal was a real shocker, considering the nature of his political running buddies, since their agenda invariably includes stuffing as many citizens into prisons as possible. Jailing people is a steady growth industry, with the raw materials always at hand. Yet the Cal guvnor wants to discharge 22,000 nonviolent, non-sex offenders, i.e, drug victims (of the legal system), from the jails, so that he can also disconnect a large number of prison guards from their jobs.

We can safely predict that should his plan be implemented, that part will have been quietly dropped from it.