The Democrats in Washington and California want to raise taxes.
The Democrats want to spend, spend, spend.
The Democrats want to get more money and make more government. Fine. Let them.
Sounds like a crazy scheme, perhaps.
Rand Paul, a junior senator, has floated the notion, along with The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, that since the country sent the slightly-left leaning message, then the Democrats can have their way. If taxes are to be raised, raise them on the $1 million or more earners in this country. Then wait for comedians and Hollywood stars like Jon Lovitz and Clint Eastwood to raise Hollywood Holly Heck for having to pay more. Imagine the shakeup on the Left coast all the way to the northeast.
There is no reason to fear that the United States will find itself fighting the same catastrophe that is enveloping Greece. Parliamentary systems do not have the checks and balances that break government spending as the Constitution has provided.
Two years from now, everyone gets to reassess where the country and their states are going. Twenty-ten can re-emerge in 2014.
Get Past the Hangover
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has raised his voice on a recent edition of “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” President Obama should be negotiating with America’s foreign creditors, including China, since they may become so jittered by the stonewalling on debt and deficit reduction that they issue a massive sell-off, with Greek-like conditions exploding all over the country and the world.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan continues to paint the debt and spending problems as a matter of revenue. Coburn refused to play games. But it appears that Democrats are just waiting out their turn.
Republicans need to shake off the hangover of Nov. 6. Unlike the reprobates from the eponymous film and sequel, Republican Party leaders do not have to ask themselves, “Where did this hideous tattoo come from (a la Mike Tyson)?” The Republicans control thirty – thirty! – statehouses across the country.
Kansas, Indiana, Texas, Wisconsin: They are cutting taxes, spending, and government out of the lives of their citizens. They are welcoming businesses that have looked for a solid place to plant and spread their wares. They will look good while Washington, D. C. (and California) governance look bad.
How Sacramento Is Different
Despite the grand showing for the Grand Old Party nationwide, California Republicans from the South Bay to the Valley are grousing. From their sparse discontent that “Henry (Waxman) the Evil Dwarf” won re-election, to their outrage that another four years of President Obama is upon us, the sky looks dark, and the light of early morning remains remote.
For the first time in decades, one-party rule is roosting in Sacramento, and the Republicans are outsiders just looking in. Such upset, such cynicism makes sense.
Instead of recrimination, the Republicans can relax. The next two years can be respite, recuperation and regrouping. If the Democrats in Sacramento want to sink the ship of state, let them. Yes, I wrote that: “Let them.” If state senators like Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) think it's a good idea to raise our car tax three times over, let him float the idea and help to sink their own party's supermajority.
Let them cobble together the rope on which they hang themselves. Hopefully, the centrists in this state will have enough presence of mind to hold them back.
How will Hal Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), a former Torrance School Board member and now a state Assemblyman, spent his way into office claiming not to be an “ideologue” or an extremist.
How will he measure up after two years in the midst of union-backed, union-bought fellow Democrats who push the extreme views of tax, spend, regulate, frustrate? Even welfare programs and entitlements require cash. Unlike the federal government, Sacramento politicians cannot print money.
Will the public sector union lobby pay California's way out of chronic bankruptcy?
Gov. Brown has run up against his own unruly party before. Now he must be the elderly parent supervising the unruly adult children. He has to clean up their messes and take the fall for their failures. Even the progressive mayor Jean Quan of Oakland had to give up her solidarity with Occupy Oakland and enforce law and order
Let the liberals play the game by their own rules. Like a religious fanatic who gives up confessing his sins when he succumbs to the reality that he is a sinful man, so, too, liberal voices in the state will have to endure the truth and consequences of their own policies, which they had dreamed and debated in the quiet atmosphere of back-rooms and faculty lounges.
Happy New Year, California Republicans in the minority.
Sit back, enjoy the ride. Be glad that the state's problems will not be your fault. The Democrats may crash, but just rest easy in the backseat with the seatbelt labeled Shut Out Minority. One-party rule is no party for the majority. Ignore the cynical derision of old elites who describe California as a gimme society.
Give them something better: Hope, respect, a positive vision of the future. Work with Democrats for the best interests of the state. If the Democrats say no, tell the voters of 2014 what you wanted to do but couldn't because of that supermajority.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a writer and blogger on issues both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A lifelong resident of Southern California, he lives in Torrance. He may be contacted at arthurschaper@hotmail.com, aschaper1.blogspot.com and at asheisministries.blogspot.com. Also see waxmanwatch.blogspot.com
