[CA]Spending Cap Called Key To National Plan (Conservatives Pushing For Smaller Government Alert)

The cap on state spending that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants voters to pass in November is emerging as a centerpiece of a nationwide strategy by influential conservatives to slash government spending in state capitals across the country.

Although the authors of the California proposal say they were not influenced by out-of-state groups, a loose affiliation of ideologically conservative organizations are hoping that the proposed California "Live Within Our Means Act" will help fuel a national taxpayer revolt they are working to coordinate in more than two dozen other states.

"This is the next big thing at the state level," said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, one of the country's leading anti-tax activists. "A lot of groups have become involved…. Soon you will see it on the ballot in every initiative state."

The California "Live Within Our Means Act" would prevent the budget from growing faster than the average increases in state revenues over the previous three years. Other states have taken somewhat different approaches, prohibiting budget growth that is faster than the rate of population and inflation or personal income. ....

Hard-line fiscal conservatives say they hope to reinvigorate the types of populist uprising that led to the approval by California voters of landmark protections against property tax increases through Proposition 13 in 1978 and the passage of term limits on politicians here and in several other states.

"The general gist is the same," said Dick Armey, an anti-tax advocate and former House of Representatives majority leader. "It is that we citizen activists have got to find a way to put restraints on our legislators."

Ultimately, Norquist, Armey and others say, they would like to see a federal spending cap to control escalating costs of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. ....

In Colorado, the GOP Governor and RINOs want voters to abandon TABOR for five years... to grow government. Conservatives should push to shrink government - to make government smaller. That's what a spending cap represents. And it all begins in California. We need another Boston Tea Party - and soon.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Dick] Armey recently accepted Owen's invitation to debate the issue on public television in Colorado, and his group has taken a lead role in working to defeat the proposal that the governor is supporting on the November ballot. It has all frustrated the Colorado governor.

"They don't have a clear understanding of what the issues here are," said Dan Hopkins, a spokesman for Owens. "They are calling this a tax increase. It clearly is not."

Yet the governor is having a tough time selling that message to voters so far. In a recent Denver Post poll, only 43% of them supported his proposal.

Gov. Bill Owens says repealing TABOR is NOT a tax increase. What would one call a move to allow the government to spend like a drunken sailor? Most Colorado voters know junking spending limits would lead the state sooner or later to a California style fiscal meltdown. Yeah, the Governor and his RINO business pals and the Democrats who run the State Legislature can put lipstick on the pig - and its still a pig. Unlike his spokesman, people DO understand what a repeal of TABOR would mean - a higher tax burden. We are told the government is being starved. We're never told of the fact government at all levels today, takes more than half of one's income. Enough is enough. Government is too big for its britches. It needs to be starved more.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

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