Time magazine’s Kevin O’Leary places the blame of the California budget crises squarely at the feet of… the overtaxed citizens of 1978 and their evil Republican overlords!

They begin with the 1978 property tax revolt and the victory of Proposition 13. As California experienced a dramatic escalation in home values, property tax assessments skyrocketed. Especially vulnerable were seniors on fixed incomes. When then Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature dithered, conservative activists led by Howard Jarvis put a seductively simple sounding proposition on the ballot. Under Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property would be limited to 1% of its assessed value and this assessed value would only increase by a maximum of 2% per year, until a change in ownership. Voters responded and Proposition 13 scored a dramatic victory with 65% of the vote. Property tax rates dropped an average of 57%.

Seriously, no blame goes to a government that has been wasting money and failing to balance budgets, and instead blames the people who foolishly limited the rate at which property taxes could increase.  The proposition O’Leary blames, Prop 13, was the last big act of fiscal conservatism seen by the state of California, limiting the increase in property taxes to 1% a year, unless the property is sold.

More from O’Leary:

“In the first years after Proposition 13 passed, the state was able to get by because it had a surplus,” says David Menefee-Libey, a political scientist at Pomona College. “But because the state is now responsible for funding local government and school districts the demands on state resources became too great. The second strategy followed by [Governors Gray] Davis and [Arnold] Schwarzenegger has been to finesse the fiscal crisis by using budget gimmicks and by borrowing to bridge the yearly budget shortfall. Now both options are exhausted.”

California has been pretty much controlled by the legislature for years.  The governors have fought as best as they could, but the spending has been out of control.  (Remember the shut down threatened by Schwartzenegger when he first took office?  He was vilified by the press.) The state has had budget surpluses, and the increase in demands for left-leaning special projects has been increasing faster than the GDP increase in the state.

More:

Proposition 13 further altered California politics by requiring a two-thirds majority for tax increases either at the state or local level. This requirement along with a constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds majority to pass a budget – the result of a proposition passed in 1933 – means it is far more difficult to raise taxes or pass a budget in California than in other states. For more than 30 years California has been living with a system of minority rule in which 34% of the legislature or a local community can stonewall the majority. Facing this post-Proposition 13 system, California’s various interest groups have increasingly used the ballot box to protect themselves – but by so doing have mandated budgetary havoc.

But O’Leary carries water for the Left, blaming the state’s troubles on the unwillingness of the people to be taxed more.  With the state income tax of California is 9.3%, the sales taxes are 8.25% (often above 10% when including local taxes) combined with a cost of living that puts any earners above the $50,000 Federal/State Tax threshold, it’s absolutely ludicrous to blame Prop 13 on the state’s budget woes.  So the heroes are the 60% majority Democrats who want to increase the tax burden on the people and business, not those who are fighting the overtaxing, a state that already hoists a 19.3% tax burden upon people who already pay 30% income tax to the Feds.

Of course, the problem is the property tax and the fact that taxes are just so gosh-darn hard to raise in California, and the evil conservatives who have an objection to handing over more than 50% of their paycheck to the government.

Life’s still in flux here, so wanted to drop by and see how the ol’ site is doing.

I’ve been quite busy with work, personal life, and other pursuits that blogging has been on the back burner.  This upcoming year is going to be quite eventful.

I’ll try to put in some posts more often.  I’ve been fascinated with the revolution in Iran, and even more fascinated with the Obama response, such as inviting the freakin’ Iranians to a shindig at the White House on July 4th (aka, Independence Day).  Allahpundit is rightly angered about it, and it just shows what an absolute moron we elected in November.

His budgets are a disaster.

His foreign policy is a disaster.

His nominees for positions are tax-laden disasters.

And all the while, the mainstream press in this country has been more than happy to kiss his ring.  How many covers of Time has he graced?  17?  Including his wife?  And ABC holds a health-care presser from the White House without any sort of rebuttal?  Even through paid ads?  And Obama has the gaul to insult Fox news?

Wake up, people.  Obama’s going to be big-time trouble.

By now, we’ve all heard the Sotomayor Story.  Her father died when she was young.  She was raised poor.  She defied the odds.

She embodies the American Dream!

What I’d like to know is why nobody’s talking about the Obama years compared to the America Sotomayor grew up in.

Her family had a lot of opportunity.  She climbed in the ranks of Federal judgedom (altough her legal opinions were rather tame).  Her nomination is being hailed as a trimuph for women and Hispanics.

But that’s not the American dream.  The American dream is not to show up and be lauded for simply being a racial statistic.  Or a gender statistic.  The American dream deals with opportunity.

Now, compare what Sotomayor grew up in with what Obama’s putting together now.  His advisors are talking about a 10% VAT.  The government is seizing privately owned companies, and selecting who closes their doors and who doesn’t.  It’s giving large chunks of a private company to a union.  It’s proposing environmental caps for the poorly-defined “pollution class”.  It’s allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.  The economy is still hemorrhaging jobs. Income from businesses has drastically declined.  Meanwhile, Big Business and The Rich are villified.

Is this truly the land of Sotomayor’s Opportunity?  Or has Obama leveraged so much bureaucratic oppression on John Q. Public that these opportunities are few and far between.

Unless you’re an example of how empathetic you are.

Make no mistake– a Sotomayor story like hers won’t spring from a heavy-handed Democratic government.  Freedom doesn’t spring from the Government.  It springs from the ingenuity of the People.

I watched this show “Weaponizers” last night.  Two teams upgrade a vehicle with weapons and armor, then battle them against each other remotely.

There are many explosions.  And at the end, they fire off a minigun.

Yeah, it’s my new favorite show.  Here’s a clip:

Here’s the current headline.

If you’re wondering about it, there’s an N missing somwhere.

It’s supposed to be an irreverant affair, so they should have invited a comedian with Conservative leanings instead of Wanda Sykes.  So, here’s what I would have done at the dinner.

*****************************************

Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and all of press who have invited me here.  It truly is an honor to be here.  I wasn’t the original host, you know, but Triumph the Insult Comic Dog had to “spend time with his bitches.”  But thank you again.  I can’t wait to be overanalyzed in the press and on blogs tomorrow.

I was actually surprised when I got the call.  Then I remembered all those unpaid taxes, and it all made sense!

But it is nice to be here.  I’m hoping I get in with the President and his crowd so I can make “People’s Most Beautiful” list.  Who knew that the “D” after their names meant “deeeeee-licious!”?

But seriously, People, Tim Geithner on the “Most Beautiful” list?  You’re just sucking up for a bailout, you smarmy bastards!

One thing I’ve noticed about the President is that wherever he goes, he’s surrounded by people who love and adore him.  We call them the White House Press Corps.

Glad Chris Matthews is here in the audience tonight.  I feel sorry for his date, however.  His leg’s going to be all-thrilled out from this dinner and he’s going to have nothing left for you when he gets home.

I was hoping to see more people from the White House Press Secretary’s office.  I see “Baby Face” Gibbs over there.  Where’s Keith Olbermann?   I look forward to being the “Worst Person in the World” for the next two weeks, so I at least wanted to give him a wave.  What’s that?  He couldn’t come?  Stuck in a bathtub?  Ah, what a shame.

I have to love Chris and Keith.  Such a Bromance going on there.  Kind of like Che and Castro.  All the love & ideology, none of the facial hair!

Keith doesn’t bother to have conservatives on his show any more, which I think is a good thing.  He doesn’t need any more help looking like a partisan ignoramus.

I hear Zucker’s pushing for a name change at that network to MSDNC.

Hey, I’m happy to see the table from Fox over there.  Sorry guys, no questions.  You didn’t carry my YouTube special.

I think it’s absolutely surreal that I’m standing here, next to the President of the United States, cracking jokes.  As I don’t have a late-night or cable show, I feel I can freely crack jokes at your expense.

The President comes from Illinois, home to stand up politicians like Richard “Raisin’ the Dead to Vote” Daly and Rod “It’s an Adjective for Everything” Blagojevich.  Evidently Rod and Rahm both come from the same finishing school.  I can just imagine those two playing Mad Libs.  “I need an adjective!”  “No, Rod, we’ve already used that 25 times!”  “Ok, I guess it is still funny.”

But the President doesn’t drop the F-bomb like his contemporaries.  Well, unless his teleprompter tells him to.

The President was kind enough to get me a gift actually.  The 25 greatest comedy performances of all time.  On Betamax.  It’s Ok, Mr. President, I’ve got a “reset” button around here somewhere.  No, I grabbed the wrong one.  This one says “Porkulus”.

Hey, I saw you and and the Vice President hit a burger joint this week to “one-up” the Republicans at the Pizza Joint.  I’m just glad they weren’t out getting Whoppers.  You might have bowed to the Burger King.

I do have to compliment your selection on Vice-President, Joe Biden.  I rode the subway here with him, and we shared a BLT from a Mexican deli.

Biden’s great, though.  If you’re having a really bad week, you can just put Biden on “Meet the Press” and suddenly you seem like the smart one!

I like Biden’s choice of a dog.  Looks like a bright breed.  However, I can understand why he didn’t use a “BO”-like name.  If he named it JB, we’d all be wondering about his drinking habits.  Hey, would explain a lot of his public speeches!  Now I understand all that plagiarism was good thing!

Nice to see you finally selected a church to attend twice a year.  I go weekly, which has put me on the Homeland Security watch list.

Speaking of security, I think this whole North Korea thing has been blown out of proportion.  I think you were right to let them launch their missile.  It’s quite clear they can’t even hit Japan.  I mean, if you can’t hit Japan, you shouldn’t be in the missile launching buisiness, right?  When someone says, “You can’t hit the broad side of a barn!”, you feel kind of bad, right?  Well, try saying “You couldn’t hit Japan with a Taepodong-2 multi-stage ballistic missile!”  I just wish we had deployed that anti-missile radar so we could send a letter to Kim Jong Il saying with a radar video of the launch, saying, “Our missiles are better than yours!  (Not that we’d use them, really.  Can I come over?  – HC)”

And Iran, they look like they’re going to be a lot of fun.  I can’t wait for your first dialogue with them.  Will that be between the “Holocaust Didn’t Happen” historical symposium and the “Push the Jews into the Sea” holiday season?

I want to wrap up with the topic of torture, becasue I know a lot of you are feeling like I’m violating the Geneva convention up here.  In fact, when you declassify the next bunch of torture techniques, be sure to include “Watched Doc’s Corresponents Dinner Stand-Up” on the list.  But it only works if you capture terrorists from the most powerful networks.  You know, NBC, CBS, ABC…

Well, looks like the Secret Service is here to escort me from the premises.  Roughly.  You’ve all been great!  God Bless America!

It’s my favorite time of year– the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Simeon Valmarov made an amazing save last night, one of two awesome saves I witnessed last night.  Here’s the video (be sure to watch the whole clip to see the replay):

The second is Roberto Luongo for the Vancouver Canucks.  While they lost last night 6-3, this save was one for highlight reel:

(There’s another video here without drunk Canadians, but they disabled embedding for some reason.)

I’m loving the playoffs so far.  Go Red Wings!

In the “you can’t make this stuff up” file, Al Gore showed up in Congress to plead to his Democrat buddies that “action must be taken” before the world reaches the point of no return.  But here’s what he said:

“It is a challenge that this Congress must rise to,” Gore said. “I wish I could find the words to get past the partisan divide that both sides have contributed to. … It shouldn’t be partisan. It should be something we do together in our national interest.”

Nice words.  But what happened 24 hours earlier?

UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

So, he urges bipartisanship, so long as the other side of the political deivide doesn’t get to hear the evidence contrary to Gore’s premise! Of course, this is typical of Gore.  It’s not the first time he ran from a debate.

And where is this blatant hypocrisy reported in the media?  Oh, it’s not!  When you control the media, you frame the debate, and when you exclude half of the debate, you control the conclusions.

No wonder I’m depressed.

Controversy stirred over the weekend, as “celebrity blogger” Perez Hilton attacked Miss California after the Miss USA pageant for an answer of hers to one of his questions.

Here’s the video of the question:

Notice Hilton’s head shake at the end of the question.  He was going to hammer her based on the answer to the question, not how she reacted to the question.  From Pageant Associates’ Q&A section:

This is your chance to impress each judge with your opinions, ability to communicate, and overall sense of self.

Notice it’s not, “The contestant shall regurgitate whatever the judge wants to hear.”  Hilton was out to make a point, and he made it loud and clear, stating that Miss California was a “dumb bitch“, a “c**t“, and claims that answer cost her the title.  (A shame you can’t choose pageant judges based upon their answers to questions, n’est-ce pas?)

What was wrong with the answer?  She expressed clearly that she embraced traditional family values, and that wasn’t the right thing to say to Perez Hilton.  So, he made sure she lost, and he made sure he attacked her.  And the organizers of Miss USA issued an apology to the gay community, because one of their contestants had an opinion, one that was requested of her by a judge! It’s embarassing that she was expected to cater to bottom-feeder Perez Hilton’s wishes than sticking to her own beliefs.

What this does is taint every future competition.  No longer can the girls express what they believe in (because it might upset a judge with an agenda).  Now, in order to win, they must go up and spew what the judges want to hear.

Thank you, Miss USA pageant and Perez Hilton, for coopting the process and enforcing group-think amongst the contestants.  Calling Mr. Trump– are you going to weigh in here?

Today’s scripture readings at my church were quite poignant and perfectly timed.  Our nation is moving towards a society which spends more and more on “freebies” for the “poor” of our society.  The Tea Parties that were held around the nation were widely ridiculed by the press, mainly because “95% of the country is getting a tax break”.  Why should they be protesting?  And how would I draw anything like that from Scripture.  I mean, come on, Jesus said “Love thy neighbor”, right?  Isn’t taking from the rich and giving to the poor God’s work?

In the Acts of the Apostles, it says that the rich disciples sold their belongings and property and gave the proceeds to the Apostles to form a Church, where the materials were divided accordingly to each by needs.  Now, to a casual observer, this sounds a lot like Communism.  But watch the fine print.  Were the Apostles a government?  Did they demand the rich give them money?  If the disciples didn’t pay, would the Apostles come by and possess everything of that disciple by force?  No.  Everything that was asked of the disciples was done on a voluntary basis.  It’s the essence of Charity.  People gave to the Church because they cared for their community, not because it was a Social Precept to redistribute the wealth so everyone had the same.

One issue I have with Catholic Democrats is their insistence that voting for Democrats serves the Catholic teaching of Social Justice.  Social Justice is defined as “correcting the structures that perpetuate the need”.  Effectively, if society is organized in such a way as to unfairly treat one group over another, then it is necessary for society to then be changed.  However, the idea of social justice has been coopted by a need to make it a political doctrine rather than a community doctrine.  Slowly but surely, compassion for others has been given to the government to dole out.  Socialism is supposed to be the great Christian state, but nothing is further from the truth.

I’ve blogged about the Catholic take on socialism before, and I highly suggest you read it (it’s one of my better posts!)  What I want you to consider is the idea of Mercy.  Mercy is forgiveness, the ability to look  past the sins of another.  In the case of Thomas, who doubted Christ’s Ressurection, Jesus understood why he doubted, and easily forgave the man.   Our current economic policy is being blamed on small groups of people:  the “rich”, the AIG employee, the banker.  However, there is not just one person here at fault.  Rather than spend our time and energy attempting to lynch the people reviled for their social status, we should be merciful and not heavy-handed.  Indeed, our government is clearly in the process of polarizing some individuals, scapegoating them for the ills of our current economic crisis.  Is this the actions of a merciful government?  Hardly.  And we’ve seen these politicians and talking heads blaming people for small sins, such as taking bonuses that were promised before the turmoil late last year, while they neglect their own sins (such as Congress giving bonuses to their own staffers).

Have no doubt– putting the burden on the government for our social doctrine is not the best way to live the Church’s teaching of social justice.  The individual and the community are the building blocks of Catholicism, and if we live correctly, perhaps our government will grow into a just government.  If we put our faith in our government instead of ourselves, we will get something that is not the embodiement of social justice.