A Scary Preview of the Left's Plan for us all

I live in California . If you were wondering what living in Obama's
second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in California are
living there now.

California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democrat Left

enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and

state government is run by and for the public employee unions.

The unemployment rate is 12%.

California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added

so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call "Medi-Cal."

Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, with smaller

classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the

per-student budget of 15 years ago. Good job, Brownie.

This week, the once and current Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown had to

confess that the "balanced" state budget adopted five months ago was

billions in the red because actual tax revenues were billions lower than the

airy-fairy revenue estimates on which the balance was predicated.

After trimming legislators' perks and reducing the number of cell
phones provided to state civil servants, the governor intoned that
drastic budget reductions had already hollowed out state programs for

the needy, law enforcement and our schoolchildren. California

government needed more money.

Echoing the Occupy movement, the governor proclaimed the rich must

pay their fair share. Fair share? The top 1% of California income earners

currently pays 50% of the state's income tax.

California has seven income tax brackets. The top income tax rate is 9.3%,

which is slapped on the greedy rich earning at least $47,056 a year. Income

of more than $1 million pays the "millionaires' and billionaires'" surcharge

tax rate of 10.3%.

Brown's proposal would add 2% for income over $250,000. A million dollar

income would then be taxed at 12.3%. And that's just for the state.

Brown also proposed a one-half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring

sales taxes (which vary by county) up to 7.75% to as much as 10%.

Both tax increases would be on the ballot in 2012.

The sales tax increase proposal immediately brought howls of protest from

the Left (of Brown!). Charlie Eaton, a sociology grad student at UC Berkeley

and leader of the UC Student-Workers Union, said, "We've paid enough.

It's time for millionaires to pay."

At least five other ballot measures to raise taxes are circulating for
signatures to get on the 2012 ballot in California . The governor's
proposals are the most conservative.

The Obama way doesn't end with taxes.

The governor and the state legislature continue to applaud the efforts of the

California High Speed Rail Authority to build a train connecting Los Angeles

and San Francisco . Even though the budget is three times the voter-approved

amount, and the first segment will only connect two small towns in the agricultural

Central Valley. But hey, if we build it, they will ride.

And we don't want to turn down the Obama bullet-train bucks Florida and

other states rejected because the operating costs would bankrupt them.

Can't happen here because we're already insolvent.

If we get into real trouble with the train, we'll just bring in the Chinese.

It worked with the Bay Bridge reconstruction. After the 1989 earthquake,

the bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco was rebuilt with steel

made in China . Workers from China too. Paid for with money borrowed

from China . Makes perfect sense.

In California , we hate the evil, greedy rich (except the rich in
Hollywood , in sports, and in drug dealing). But we love people

who have broken into California to eat the bounty created by the
productive rich.

Illegals get benefits from various generous welfare programs, free
medical care, free schools for their kids, including meals, and of
course, instate tuition rates and scholarships too. Nothing's too good for our guests.

To erase even a hint of criticism of illegal immigration, the
California Legislature is considering a unilateral state amnesty.
Democrat State Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has proposed an initiative

that would bar deportation of illegal’s from California .

Interesting dilemma for Obama there. If immigration is exclusively a

federal matter, and Obama has sued four states for trying to enforce

federal immigration laws he won't enforce, what will the President do

to a California law that exempts California from federal immigration law?

California is also near fulfilling the environmentalist dream of
deindustrialization.

After driving out the old industrial base (auto and airplane assembly, for example),

air and water regulators and tax policies are now driving out the high-tech, biotech

and even Internet-based companies that were supposed to be California 's future.

The California cap-and-trade tax on business in the name of reducing

CO2 makes our state the leader in wacky environmentalism and guarantees

a further job exodus from the state.

Even green energy companies can't do business in California . Solyndra

went under, taking its taxpayer loan guarantee with it.

No job is too small to escape the regulators. The state has even
banned weekend amateur gold miners from the historic gold

mining streams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains .

In fact, more and more of California 's public land is off-limits to
recreation by the people who paid for that land. Unless you're
illegal.

Then you can clear the land, set up marijuana plantations at will,
bring in fertilizers that legal farmers can no longer use, exploit
illegal farm workers who live in hovels with no running water or
sanitation, and protect your investment with armed illegals carrying

guns no California citizen is allowed to own.

The rest of us only found out about these plantations when the
workers' open campfire started one of those devastating fires that
have killed hundreds of people and burned out thousands of homes

in California over the last decade.

It's often said that whatever happens in California will soon happen in your state.

You'd better hope that's wrong.