Here we are, five days into the new fiscal year. No tax increase was imposed. Instead, on July 1, we got some tax cuts here in California.

That’s the spirit! The spirit of the 1776 tax revolt and revolution we just celebrated yesterday, Independence Day.

Are we in California now suffering “Armageddon,” as Gov. Jerry Brown threatened back in March?

Or are we going through “war of all against all,” as Jerry said we would, also back in March? He was quoting philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the ultra-monarchist, apparently a job Jerry thinks he holds.

No disasters have happened. Instead, a lot of waste has been cut from incredibly wasteful budgets. And a lot of baloney has been spewed by Brown and other Democrats and government-union hacks about how the state supposedly is worse off.

Actually, Californians are enjoying the rare privilege of a tax cut. I’m looking forward to having a little more money in my paycheck this July 15. And my car tax, due July 25, will be about $100 less.

I’m pretty much in the middle of the middle class. So, I don’t enjoy the fat-cat incomes of those who spend our tax dollars. Such as the $1 million combined incomes of the two honchos at the state’s stem-cell agency. They’re blowing the $6 billion bond voters stupidly passed back in 2004 (despite the many editorials I wrote in the Orange County Register against Proposition 74).

How can the fools in the state government waste this $6 billion — then demand that our taxes be increased by that amount every year?

We don’t have “war of all against all” as our dictator-governor contends. Instead, we have war of the government against the people.

On July 1, the people enjoyed a minor, but significant, victory. But we can expect the Hobbesian autocracy to strike back soon.

They always want more — more of our money, more waste, more perks and pleasures and pay and pensions for themselves, more tyranny.

Fight back!

July 5, 2011

I haven’t noticed the earth quaking. Or thousands of Californians being washed out to drown in the Pacific Ocean, the way Japanese were after their recent earthquake-tsunami.

But just a couple of weeks ago Gov. Jerry Brown was demanding that, if his $12 billion in tax increases wasn’t put before voters in June, California would suffer disaster.

Here’s government cheerleader/tax obsessive/columnist George Skelton writing on March 10:

Gov. Jerry Brown has a scenario for what happens if Republicans refuse to place his tax proposal on a June ballot: California becomes Armageddon.

That’s my word, not his. His characterization is uttered first in Latin, then translated: “It’ll be a war of all against all.”

Well, here we are and I haven’t noticed even one Californian fighting a war against me, let alone “all” 37 million Californians.

The dirty little secret government functionaries like Brown and their hangers-on like Skelton won’t tell you is this: Government apparachiks can’t survive without us, but we can survive quite nicely without them.

It’s the taxpayers who are the host for the parasite government. Without us, they would shrivel and die.

But if we get rid of the government, we would feel as good as a man ridding himself of a tapeworm.

There is nothing government does that couldn’t be done better — and much, much cheaper — by the private sector: schools, firefighting, water, charity for the poor (which the government brands “welfare”), health care, even police protection.

Without government, we would all be as happy as the Beach Boys singing “Good Vibrations”:
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“Armageddon” was the word columnist George Skelton used for what would happen if Gov. Jerry Brown’s $12 billion tax increase isn’t put on a special June ballot, then approved by voters. The two tax-lovers sat down for lunch.

Jerry’s actual words were: “It’ll be a war of all against all.”

In case you slept through Poli Sci 101, that’s a quote from Thomas Hobbes‘ “Leviathan.” He posited that, unless everyone was in thrall to a supreme sovereign — such as the royal he was sucking up to, Prince Charles, later King Charles — then there would be only chaos and life would be “solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Ever since, governments have been using that as an excuse to control us. So Jerry’s just updating a 17th century homily for tyranny.

Skelton wrote of Brown’s peroration on what Armageddon would be like:

“I put up an all-cuts budget…. Then the Democrats change [the all-cuts budget] and put in gimmicks. Then I veto it. Then everybody sits there until we run out of money. It’s not going to be a pretty sight. It’s like one-two: No tax, all cuts, gimmicky budget, veto, paralysis.”

“There’ll be initiatives on taxing wine and beer and oil companies,” he says, “and a split roll” — taxing commercial real estate higher than residential. “And Republicans will counterattack” with anti-union measures and efforts to undermine the public sector.

“There’ll be an unleashing of left and right forces. Everyone will come out fighting. California will become a battleground…. It’ll be a war of all against all. The loser will be the people of California.”

But he, Skelton, the majority Democrats, and many Republicans still don’t get it: Armageddon already is here.

Even if put on the ballot, he tax increases are unlikely to be passed by voters. And even if the tax increases are passed by voters, the tax increases will just snuff out what minuscule economic recovery is going on now. Then there will be even less money for taxes. And even greater cuts will have to be made.

Gov. Davis, Gov. Schwarzenegger and successive Legislatures blew out the budget over the last decade. AB 32 and other anti-business bills chased tax-producing businesses and citizens from the state.

What’s going is the fallout from an Armageddon going on already.

March 10, 2011