California’s May 19 rebellion set to reject tax hikes

California voters head to the polls next week with predictions of doom echoing in their ears if they decline to endorse the massive tax hikes prescribed for them by big Democratic majorities in the statehouse, the governor and a handful of now politically ruined Republican legislators.

“Shrill” doesn’t begin to describe the campaign designed to stampede the Golden State electorate. The latest ad has a weary, soot-covered firefighter urging a yes vote on the tax hike. The message is clear: Vote no and your homes will burn down.

Not even this sort of fearmongering is moving the needle toward “yes” on the massive tax surge on next week’s ballot as poll after poll shows all the key measures put forward by the tax-and-spend-and-tax-again crowd failing badly.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing his best to summon up the old magic, but his appeal long ago hit Gray Davis levels. Arnold was elected to slash taxes and spending, and somehow he confused that mandate with orders to throw in with the public-employee unions. Too bad. He could have been a contender.

The GOP “leaders” who signed on to this roadmap to ruin have been dumped by their caucuses, and go down in California history as the biggest marks to have ever had a seat at the poker game known as the “Big Five” negotiations, wherein the governor and the top Republicans and Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate hash out budget matters.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and every other would-be Democratic governor are watching their chances in 2010 swirl down the drain as deep disgust with the tax-addicted grows.

On the GOP side, Meg Whitman and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner — the leading candidates to replace Arnold — are against Proposition 1A, the biggest of the tax hikes, and the deep revulsion at the refusal of the Sacramento elite to make even minor cuts in the bloated state budget is forcing a realignment that East Coast political reporters ought to take note of.

If the tax hikes are rejected by large margins next week, the country’s political elite ought to study that result closely. Despite huge spending margins and despite a thin veneer of bipartisanship, the tax-hike gang is getting thumped because the electorate is saying — no, shouting — “enough!”

Everyone has a story of a state or county employee friend who is retiring at 55 with a guaranteed life pension of $75,000 or more plus gold-plated medical benefits. Almost everyone knows that massive amounts of money have flowed into Los Angeles public schools and still half of the kids drop out. Majorities realize that businesses don’t have to operate here, and that places like Texas may lack the Rose Parade but let you grow a business and keep most of the profits.

On social issues, California is evenly split, as the narrow victory for traditional marriage this past fall demonstrated.

But there is a sizeable majority in favor of a radical change in the way government operates. The anger directed at Arnold and his tax-raising, free-spending pals is fueled by the genuine hardships brought about by the panic in the fall and the drop in home prices. Every business and almost all families have had to make painful cuts and downsize or postpone dreams.

But not the state government. And that has ignited the voter revolt under way that will culminate next week.

What happens next is anyone’s guess because very few people think Arnold has any game left, and so the state is effectively leaderless after its voters deliver an unambiguous message to carve state government back to the bone.

The first logical step would indeed be massive downsizing in state government outside of public safety and education. Public-assistance budgets will have to be slashed, and public-employee pensions renegotiated to manageable levels.

California’s budget woes are much greater than those of GM and Chrysler combined, but no give-backs have even been requested of the public-employee unions beyond the symbolic loss of a holiday or two. Entitlement payments have to be slashed and state assets sold.
The Golden State is bankrupt. It needs a quasi-bankruptcy proceeding, and it needs it now.
 
Examiner columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.