Steinberg: Raise Taxes For Dems!

Steven Greenhut: California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, last week called on the state government to raise taxes — but only in the Democratic districts where voters have been clamoring for tax hikes as a way to fix the state’s budget problems. OK … I’m kidding. He didn’t really do that, but he did call for something equally noxious — for cuts in state funding for GOP districts, per his answer to a question here. For some reason, it’s OK to target Republicans for fewer services (actually, I’d be OK with that given that there are only a few government “services” that are particularly useful and virtually none that are cost-effectively provided), but it would be viewed as outrageous for a Republican to call for tax hikes on Democratic areas only. Yet Steinberg’s argument is identical. What’s the difference between denying people services or raising their taxes based on their political predispositions?

But maybe this has potential. Maybe if we get enough Libertarians in one district, we can cut a deal to be allowed to privatize the few useful services, slash all the unuseful ones and keep almost all of our money. If that were the case, I’d say that we’d be seeing more Libertarian districts in the future.

MAY 2, 2011