An Apt Comparison -- For the Wrong Reasons

This morning, the Washington Post points out that the California fiscal nightmare looks likely to become the shape of things to come for the nation as a whole -- with skyrocketing deficits and drastic, across-the-board service cuts.

But then the Post makes a ridiculous mistake, blaming the crisis primarily on the state legislature's inability to raise taxes without a two-thirds vote. Please. How typical of the MSM to think that undertaxation is the problem.

As I pointed out in a column last autumn,

Of all the problems contributing to the fiscal mess, state under-taxation is the least of them. California's sales and gas taxes are the highest in the country - and it has the highest vehicle license fees and the second-highest top-bracket income tax, too. Its corporate tax rates are the highest of all Western states, and for the fourth year in a row, a survey of 543 CEO's found that California's toxic combination of high taxes and intrusive regulations made it the worst place in the nation to do business.

In fact, at the real root of California's fiscal misery is the profligacy of arrogant, big-spending, left-wing legislators, who have treated taxpayers as if they exist only to support the government.

Yes, there are parallels between coming national problems and those currently afflicting California -- but they have nothing to do with inadequate taxation, and everything to do with politicians who think they, rather than regular Americans, know best. The overregulation and high taxes favored by Democrats nationally will have the same disastrous results as the over-regulation and high taxes favored by the enduring Democrat majority in California.