Car tax: Just pay up.
It's official: California's so- called leaders have successfully found a way to take money from your pocket to subsidize their own incompetence, and they've made sure you won't even see them doing it. It's the worst kind of shell game, because California residents can't choose whether or not they want to play.
{BYLINE}By tripling the car tax, Gov. Gray Davis last weekend managed to conjure up a massive $4-billion tax increase, not by his own pen or that of the Legislature, but through an unelected, appointed underling, his director of finance.
Taxation without representation didn't our country once fight a war over this sort of thing?
The car tax increase is one of the most visible symptoms of the leadership crisis that has already become a severe threat to California's residents and businesses.
It began when as state lawmakers went about squandering a $12-billion surplus in just four years and turning it into a deficit of historic proportions, more than $30 billion. Now it continues as they reach for more money, in the form of new taxes and billions of dollars of additional debt, to continue their out-of-control spending.
The car tax is just one of the more insidious methods.
The state's car registration fees have traditionally gone to finance local governments, so in 1998, when the state cut the car fees, it promised to "backfill' the loss to cities and counties. In his most recent budget, Davis proposed cutting the backfill, which instantly created a massive group of lobbyists city and county politicians who began pushing for a higher car tax.
What's worse, the car tax increase was tied to a "trigger' in the state budget, so when the financial situation got bad, as it is now, the fees could go up without a vote of the Legislature and governor's signature. All it took was the action of a low-level finance director.
One of the great lies about the car tax being foisted on the public is that it was "inevitable,' a product of the sour economy. In truth, it was no more inevitable than the record surplus becoming a historic deficit the direct result of severe mismanagement.
Meanwhile, both political parties in Sacramento are framing the budget debate as a contest solely of new taxes versus spending cuts. This, not by coincidence, places the burden squarely on residents and taxpayers rather than the politicians who created the mess.
Responsible leadership would act from the inside out curbing the state's rampant spending, implementing management reforms and innovations that other states have used to cut costs and make due with less, trimming waste, eliminating sweetheart deals, contracts and overlapping programs, consolidating, streamlining and privatizing when feasible, and creating a job- friendly climate that would raise revenue through higher employment instead of higher taxes. And, finally, adopting a constitutional amendment to limit spending to inflation and population growth.
It's not magic. The Santa Monica-based Reason Foundation has come up with a responsible budget plan based on those ideas to cut the deficit over two years and create a small surplus, while keeping education, health and social services strong.
But with state lawmakers locked in a partisan struggle that looks no further than tax increases and cuts to vital services, a responsible budget seems like an impossible dream.
After all, it is a lot easier to play shell games than it is to work for a living.
