Tuesday’s midterm election results have revealed one thing for sure: California voters have agreed to tax themselves into oblivion, and move the state even further to the left.
With the defeat of Proposition 6, voters chose to continue to pay an additional 12 cents per gallon for gas, plus the additional $50-$180 increase in their annual auto registration fees. With built-in annual increases in these taxes and fees, it’s hard to fathom why low-income commuters, who drive over 100 miles a day to get to their jobs, would vote to perpetuate this form of highway robbery.
California taxpayers have been paying the highest gas taxes in the country for decades, all for the privilege of driving on some of the nation’s crappiest roads. Gov. Jerry Brown made it clear to the heavily taxed “freeloaders” of this state that the roads will turn to gravel overnight if he didn’t get more money.
One can only imagine how wonderful our roads and freeways could be, had the Democrats in the California Legislature not raided the highway funds to provide drivers’ licenses, free college tuition, free health care and free legal services to illegal aliens.
As predicted, Gavin Newsom will become California’s next governor. His starry-eyed campaign promises included “guaranteed health care for all; a ‘Marshall Plan’ for affordable housing; a master plan for aging with dignity; a middle-class workforce strategy; a cradle-to-college promise for the next generation; an all-hands approach to ending child poverty.”
How is Governor-elect Newsom going to pay for these lofty promises?
According to the Sacramento Bee, Newsom “has long envisioned a universal health care model for California that includes a single-payer system.” With support from the newly elected state insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, Newsom is likely to sign a universal healthcare bill for California.
The far-left Democrats in the California state Legislature pass a universal health care bill every year. Jerry Brown has never signed one into law, knowing that the massive tax increases required to pay for it are unrealistic.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the total cost to cover all health care and administrative costs would be $400 billion per year, twice the state’s budget. Of that total, $200 billion would need to be raised from new taxes.
With sky-high housing costs and a lack of job opportunities, the middle class has been fleeing California in droves to more affordable states. According to data from the American Community Survey, from 2007 to 2016, about 5 million people moved to California from other states, while 6 million people left. With the highest number of welfare recipients in the country, California is becoming a state with only two classes: the very rich and the very poor.
How much more can Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats suck out of us before we shrivel up and die? In their minds, our hard-earned money is an endless source of uncollected tax dollars.
As California demographics change, and voters continue to elect more far-left Democrats to represent them, do they believe that the money they earn actually belongs to them? Or does it belong to those who rule over us?
Does our money belong to those politicians with dreams of making a name for themselves? To those who tell us what we need and why we should appreciate their efforts to provide it for us, regardless of the cost, outcome, or consequences?
Have we come to believe that only those who have ascended into the halls of political victory have the wisdom and the power to dictate our values and to shape our social norms? Have we been so beaten down by self-hating Hollywood liberals, who know nothing about the real world, but lecture us on a daily basis about how we should think and behave?
How far left is California willing to go?
Terri Lovell is president of Santa Clarita Republican Women Federated. “Right Here, Right Now” appears Saturdays and rotates among several local Republicans.
